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David C. Cook Publishing Co., Elgin, 111., and 
 36 Washington St., Chicago. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 JJ AERY PUECELL reined in his pony 
 ■*■ on the embankment and looked 
 
 disappointedly into the ditch. It was as 
 dry as a powder-horn. 
 
 " There can't have been much of a 
 rise," was his thought. " The water 
 ought to have been here before now." 
 
 The buffalo-grass plains were about 
 him, the sun blazed down on him from a 
 cloudless sky, and a hot south wind 
 fanned his cheeks. He could hear the 
 wind as well as feel it. It soughed sug- 
 gestively across the gray expanses and 
 
 THtYOUNG 
 DITCH 
 
 AIMm hi llllllllilllii'l" 
 
 RIDER 
 
 • A- STORYOF-THE-PLA1N5- 
 
 sang among the clods at his pony's 
 feet. It was a sapless, dessicating 
 wind, whose breath meant ruin to 
 the crops unless an abundant flow 
 of water could speedily be obtained. 
 Harry Purcell was the " ditch- 
 rider " for the Golconda Irrigation 
 and Development Company. This 
 company, tapping the upper Arkan- 
 sas with its main canal, led the water out 
 upon the high uplands known as the 
 " flats," where, by a series of smaller 
 canals, it was distributed to the farmers. 
 The season was an exceptionally dry 
 one. It was now near the end of June 
 and there had been no rain since early in 
 April. Worse still, the river was so low 
 that there was not enough water for irri- 
 gating purposes; and the farmers, whose 
 crops were withering, alternated between 
 despair at the ruin they foresaw and anger 
 against the " ditch " company, at whose 
 door they laid most of their misfortunes. 
 Harry Purcell's duties were so onerou3 
 
 Copyright, 1898 and 1899, by David C. Cook Publishing Company. 
 
2 THE YOUNG 
 
 that he was usually in the saddle from 
 daylight till dark. His work of " riding 
 the ditch " required him to inspect the 
 embankments, dams and water-gates 
 along more than thirty miles of canals 
 and laterals. In addition, he was ex- 
 pected to placate the grumblers, distribute 
 the water justly and impartially, and pre- 
 vent water-stealing. Certainly this was 
 enough work, and more than enough 
 work, for a boy of seventeen. 
 
 Harry had ridden to the head of the 
 ditch the day before, and had been led to 
 believe, by the appearance of the water in 
 the river, that the long-hoped-for spring 
 rise was at hand. This rise, which 
 usually comes late in May or early in 
 June, is not brought about by rainfall, 
 but by the melting of snow in the moun- 
 tains. As soon as the season is sufficiently 
 advanced the snows melt in the high 
 gorges and the water is poured into the 
 stream from a thousand sources. Burst- 
 ing through the Grand Canon, that 
 mighty cleft in the great eastern barrier 
 of the Eockies, the Arkansas flows out in 
 a muddy flood across the thirsty plains of 
 Eastern Colorado and Western Kansas, 
 where hundreds of miles of irrigating 
 canals distribute the bulk of it over cul- 
 tivated fields, and rob the demon Drouth 
 of its terrors. 
 
 The young ditch-rider looked earnestly 
 up the ditch, whose brown embankments, 
 rising like ridges upheaved by gigantic 
 moles, ran in parallel zigzags toward the 
 
 DTTCH-BWEK 
 
 southwest. To the southward and across 
 the river the grass-covered sand-hills 
 thrust up their tousled heads. To the 
 westward and northward and eastward 
 rose houses and " shacks," with windmills 
 wheeling on airy towers; and stacks of hay 
 and grain, kept over from the previous 
 summer, evidencing the fatness of the 
 land. Just across the ditch a saucy 
 prairie dog, upreared on the edge of its 
 hole, barked impudently, while other 
 prairie dog mounds were visible farther 
 away. 
 
 The look of disappointment deepened 
 into one of anxiety. Among those vitally 
 interested in the coming of the water, the 
 young ditch-rider numbered his mother 
 and himself; for Mrs. Purcell had a 
 " proved-up " pre-emption farther up the 
 ditch, with a number of acres of grain, 
 alfalfa and sorghum growing on it. 
 
 Harry Purcell drew his pony back from 
 the embankment and rode on across the 
 unfenced country, unmindful of the hot 
 south wind and the burning sun. His 
 earnest face was as brown as a nut; his 
 wide-brimmed white hat, held in place by 
 a cord that passed loosely behind his 
 head, flared and flapped; the huge wooden 
 stirrups rose and fell; the tail of his short 
 coat snapped in the breeze. As the buck- 
 skin pony bounded on in a rocking can- 
 ter, shying around a badger hole now and 
 then, the young ditch-rider, sitting with 
 Western firmness in the deep saddle, cer- 
 tainly presented an attractive picture. 
 
TEE YOUNG 
 
 The buckskin was so intelligent an ani- 
 mal, with such a knowing look in its 
 eyes, that Harry had often tried to pic- 
 ture what its life must have been before 
 it came into his possession. 
 
 For one thing it had been owned by an 
 Indian, as was shown by the brand burned 
 on its hip. That brand rudely repre- 
 sented a bow and arrow and a buffalo. 
 That the bow and arrow were as large as 
 the buffalo only evidenced the lack of 
 skill or the peculiar taste of the Indian 
 artist. 
 
 It had as evidently escaped from its 
 Indian owner, for it had been caught 
 from a wild herd on the banks of the 
 Canadian, by Kansas horse-hunters, who 
 had re-subjugated it by means of their 
 cruel " breaking " chains, whose scars 
 still showed on its forelegs. From these 
 horse-hunters Harry had bought it. 
 
 A change of the ditch's direction 
 brought into view a house that was a 
 cross between a " shack " and a " dug- 
 out " — a rough, shanty - like structure, 
 half above ground, and half underground 
 in cellar fashion. This was the home of 
 Eichmond Baily. " Old Baily," nearly 
 everybody called him; and so Harry 
 thought of him, though he always took 
 good care to address the irascible farmer 
 as " Mr. Baily." 
 
 As Baily's came within the field of 
 vision, there was again a tightening of 
 the rein, though the pony was not brought 
 to a full halt; and the teeth of the young 
 
 DITCH-EIDER. 3 
 
 ditch-rider closed with a click of sudden 
 suspicion. 
 
 "It wouldn't surprise me a bit if old 
 Baily's got the water turned into his 
 fields!" 
 
 From the first there had been ill-will 
 between the Bailys and Purcells; and, 
 when Harry had secured the position of 
 ditch-rider, Baily had been prompt to 
 question his fitness for the place and to 
 hint suggestively that Mrs. Purcell would 
 no doubt now raise good crops even if no 
 one else did. 
 
 Coming to the ears of the Purcells this 
 did not incline them to think more kindly 
 of Mr. Baily. As for Mrs. Baily, she was 
 never much taken into account by any- 
 one, and less so by her husband. She 
 was a sickly woman, who was almost a 
 nonentity in her own home and every- 
 where else. 
 
 But there was one member of the Baily 
 family against whom no bitter or cross- 
 grained word was ever uttered. That 
 was little Elsie, a bright-haired creature 
 of eight — the angel of the household. ' i 
 
 As Harry Purcell again set the pony in 
 motion and rode toward Baily's, there 
 came back to him, in all its details, the 
 recollection of the beginning of the ill- 
 feeling that had separated the families. 
 Both Mr. Baily and Mrs. Purcell had 
 wanted the same pre-emption. A Golden 
 City land agent and locator had called 
 Mrs. Purcell's attention to it, and she had 
 employed him to drive her son and her- 
 
THE YOUNG BITGH-BIDEB. 
 
 self out to the land that they might make 
 the beginning of the " improvements " 
 demanded by the law, which, in practice, 
 was usually no more than the shoveling 
 of a few spadefuls of earth, or the laying 
 of a so-called " foundation " for a house. 
 
 As it chanced, Mr. Baily had been 
 driven out from Golden City the same 
 day, by a rival locator, who intended to 
 place him on that identical pre-emption. 
 The object of each party becoming known 
 to the other, the result was a wild race 
 across the trailless plains, in which Mrs. 
 Purcell won. 
 
 The fact that the victor was a widow 
 did not seem to alter Mr. Baily's feelings 
 on the subject. The defeat and the loss 
 of the land made him bitter. He took, 
 as the next best, the pre-emption adjoin- 
 ing it on the east; and shortly afterward 
 moved his family there and went to rais- 
 ing cattle and farming. 
 
 But he was far from being a good 
 neighbor, the Purcells thought. He did 
 not closely watch his cattle and they more 
 than once devoured Mrs. Purcell's crops. 
 Though warned that young sorghum and 
 damp green alfalfa were especially hurt- 
 ful to cattle, Baily paid no heed; and one 
 morning four of his finest cows were 
 dead from alfalfa bloat, as the result of 
 trespassing in the Purcell alfalfa field. 
 
 It taught him a lesson, but it increased 
 his dislike for the Purcells. 
 
 Baily was one of the heaviest farmers, 
 and had contracted for enough water to 
 
 irrigate a hundred acres. That allowed 
 him a water-gate aperture ten inches 
 high and ten inches wide; or one hundred 
 inches of water, flowing through the gate 
 under what is technically known as a 
 "four-inch pressure." It was Harry 
 Purcell's duty, when the water was run- 
 ning, to open each gate to the limit al- 
 lowed by the farmer's water contract and 
 to lock it there; but no one else was 
 privileged to do this. 
 
 Harry knew, however, that in some in- 
 stances duplicate keys had been procured, 
 and locks broken, and even ditches 
 boldly cut with the spade, to bring about 
 an increase in the flow. 
 
 " Baily's mean enough to steal every 
 inch of water in the ditch, if he believed 
 no one would catch him at it!" was his 
 thought, as the pony galloped on in that 
 easy, tireless way that takes the true 
 Western pony so rapidly over the ground 
 and enables it to accomplish such dis- 
 tances. 
 
 Harry did not stop to consider how un- 
 just to Mr. Baily this reflection might be, 
 until he rode into the fenceless fields and 
 up to the ditch in front of the house and 
 saw that the ditch was as dry at that 
 point as it was further down. 
 
 Baily, who was engaged in splicing a 
 string of barbed wire on his cattle corral, 
 using an old wagon wheel as a wire 
 stretcher, abandoned his task and shuffled 
 across to where the young ditch-rider had 
 halted. 
 
THE YOUNG 
 
 " I think it's a shame!" he declared, 
 his face mantling. " Here I haven't 
 had a drop of water since I don't know 
 when, and ain't likely to have, seems 
 like!" 
 
 Elsie, who had heen playing with a 
 shepherd puppy, left her rough playmate 
 and followed her father, coming to a halt 
 a few feet behind him. As her father 
 talked, she stared up at Harry with her 
 wondrous blue eyes, that seemed so like 
 hits out of the Kansas sky, and threw 
 back, with a sunburned little hand, the 
 bright hair that the brisk wind persisted 
 in tossing into her face. 
 
 " You told me there'd be water down 
 to-day!" Baily said. 
 
 " I told you I thought there would be," 
 Harry corrected. " And I'm surprised 
 that it isn't here before this." 
 
 "Don't see why you should be!" Baily 
 snapped. " Your company expects to git 
 rich without spending a cent. They 
 ought to lengthen that dam." 
 
 Harry tried to apologize for the com- 
 pany's shortcomings. 
 
 " The snows are slow to melt this sea- 
 son. I expected the water to-day. I'll 
 ride up to the river again and see what's 
 the matter. There may be some trouble 
 at the dam." 
 
 "And I'll go 'long with you!" said 
 Baily, stepping toward the sod stable to 
 bring out his pony. 
 
 The tone and manner were nagging in 
 the extreme, and at any time Harry 
 
 DITGH-BIDEB. 5 
 
 would much have preferred Mr. Baily's 
 room to his company. 
 
 " Look at that wheat!" Baily grumbled, 
 as he swung into the saddle and they set 
 out together. "Yellow as a pumpkin 
 and chinch-bugged till you kin smell it 
 to town and back. It won't cut five 
 bushels to the acre; and if this thing 
 keeps up it won't even pay to run a har- 
 vester over it. Water on that ground in 
 March would have made it. And the 
 river was running bank full then!" 
 
 The young ditch-rider did not want an 
 argument and remained silent. Besides, 
 there was much truth in the statement. 
 
 " 'Stead 0' conductin' things in a busi- 
 ness-like way, you fellers was tinkerin* 
 'long, tryin' to make a nickel's worth of 
 work cover a dollar's worth of need. The 
 water that might have been had, run on. 
 down to the gulf; and then, when it was 
 all gone, you sent out notices that the 
 ditches was ready and that you was in 
 condition to make contracts." 
 
 " You farmers can't hold yourselves 
 entirely blameless, Mr. Baily," Harry de- 
 clared, no longer able to restrain his 
 opinions. " You held back from making 
 contracts, hoping for a rainy season, 
 thinking if it came you could get along 
 without ditch water; and at the same time 
 you knew that the Golconda Company 
 needed the money it could have borrowed 
 on your water notes, for the purpose of 
 putting the ditches and dam in order. 
 It couldn't get the money, and it couldn't 
 
THE YOUNG D1TCH-BWEB. 
 
 do the work in time. Perhaps it didn't 
 try hard enough. But you should be 
 willing to share the responsibility." 
 
 But the young ditch-rider found, as he 
 had found before, that an argument with 
 Mr. Baily was a mere waste of words. 
 
 Neither was in good temper when the 
 Purcell pre-emption was reached. The 
 old bitterness of feeling rankled anew, 
 and Harry felt especially hurt by certain 
 hints thrown out by the old farmer to the 
 effect that matters would not now be so 
 bad if the ditch-rider had always done his 
 duty. 
 
 Harry dismounted in front of his 
 humble home, drew the rein over the 
 pony's head, that it might trail on the 
 ground and keep the trained pony from 
 straying, and ran into the house to speak 
 a word with his mother. 
 
 Baily did not dismount, but rode across 
 the unfenced alfalfa field that lay west 
 of the house, and on to the bend of the 
 ditch where Harry had set his mother's 
 water-gate. 
 
 As Harry came out he saw Baily swing 
 to the ground at the gate and stoop 
 down as if to examine it. Then Harry 
 mounted and galloped toward him, going 
 around the field instead of straight across 
 it. 
 
 He was almost to the ditch before he 
 discovered what had drawn Baily's atten- 
 tion. Then he fairly reeled in the sad- 
 dle, while a dizzying sense of astonish- 
 ment and uncertainty overwhelmed him. 
 
 His mother's water-gate was wide open! 
 The expected rise had come and the main 
 canal was half full; but the open water- 
 gate was draining the entire flow into 
 the Purcell alfalfa field! What did it 
 mean? 
 
 Dashing his heels against the pony's 
 flanks, Harry sent it on with quick 
 bounds until it reached the point occu- 
 pied by Baily. Then he saw that the 
 water-gate was not only open, but that it 
 was locked open, and that the usual dam 
 — a board backed with sod and earth — 
 had been placed across the canal for the 
 purpose of diverting into the field all 
 the water the canal might contain. The 
 full extent of the damaging discovery 
 rendered him almost speechless. 
 
 Harry looked anxiously and puzzledly 
 at the irate old man, who now faced him 
 like an accusing angel. Who could have 
 opened the water-gate in that manner? 
 This was the question Harry asked him- 
 self, and which received no reply. 
 
 "No more'n I expected!" Baily 
 snarled. " I've said from the first that 
 the Purcell crops wouldn't never go beg- 
 gin' for water! You didn't think I'd 
 come round by this bend; but you see I 
 did!" 
 
 "Stop that, Mr. Baily!" Harry com- 
 manded, anger quivering up through his 
 amazement. " I never opened that gate!" 
 
 Then he saw that the old farmer was 
 fairly shaking with rage. 
 
 " I've no more idea how this thing hap- 
 
THE YOUNG DITCB-BLDEB. 
 
 pened than you have. I didn't do it; 
 and I'm sure mother didn't!" 
 
 Baily stared disbelievingly. " Who 
 else would want to do it? Who else 
 
 As he paused from his exertions, Baily 
 was climbing slowly into the saddle. 
 
 " I'd like a little o' that water, thank 
 ye, and will ride back home to be ready 
 
 "Answer me that:*' 
 
 would have any reason to? Answer me 
 that!" 
 
 Harry did not stop to reply. He 
 leaped down and hastily tore out the ob- 
 structing dam; then, taking a bunch of 
 keys from his pocket, he unlocked and 
 lowered the gate. 
 
 fer it when it comes. I reckon you'll go 
 right on down and set the gates, now?" 
 
 " Yes," said Harry, his thoughts all 
 awhirl. " I'll come right on down. But 
 you mustn't think that I opened this 
 gate; for, on my honor, I didn't!" 
 
 Baily galloped away without rsjolying; 
 
8 
 
 THE YOUNG 
 
 and Harry Pureell, leaving his mother's 
 gate tightly closed, confusedly mounted 
 the buckskin pony and splashed inquir- 
 ingly across the alfalfa field, where the 
 water stood four and five inches deep. 
 
 There could be no doubt that the upper 
 portion of the alfalfa field was secure for 
 a time against the effects of the drouth 
 and hot winds. The black soil was a per- 
 fect muck, into which the pony sunk to 
 the fetlocks. The gate must have been 
 open for hours. 
 
 Harry looked over the field with deep 
 concern. The fact that the alfalfa was 
 safe gave him pain instead of pleasure. 
 Other fields were withering for lack of the 
 water that had soaked into this soil, and 
 it had been made his duty to see that they 
 got their share. How was he to explain 
 away this piece of apparently criminal 
 selfishness? How was he to establish his 
 innocence in the eyes of his neighbors? 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 BAILY BECOMES AGGRESSIVE. 
 
 BECAME clear to the 
 mind of Harry Pureell 
 that the water-gate had 
 been opened by some one 
 who desired to injure 
 him in the eyes of the 
 ditch patrons. Who that enemy was, 
 only time and the run of events could de- 
 
 DITCH-EWEB. 
 
 cide. His present duty was to ride down 
 the ditch and make the gates ready to re- 
 ceive the water. 
 
 However, no great haste was required. 
 The water filled the dry ditch slowly 
 enough. It would take nearly an hour's 
 time for it to reach Baily's. 
 
 Therefore, he turned homeward, 
 anxious to talk the matter over with his 
 mother, and yet shrinking from acquaint- 
 ing her with his startling discovery. 
 
 Mrs. Pureell came out of the door as he 
 neared the house. She had seen Baily 
 ride furiously away; and Harry's return, 
 after he had announced his intention of 
 going to the river, told her something was 
 wrong. She saw the look of pain and 
 annoyance on her son's face, and her own 
 sympathetic countenance reflected it. 
 
 "What's the matter?" she asked. 
 
 " We found the gate wide open when 
 we went up there and a dam in the ditch. 
 The upper end of the alfalfa is all afloat. 
 It must have been running since in the 
 night, by the looks of it." 
 
 Mrs. Pureell, who had been wiping her 
 hands on her apron, contracted her fingers 
 in a sudden spasm within its folds. 
 
 "Why, how — who opened it?" she 
 faltered. 
 
 " I only wish I knew! Mr. Baily's 
 hopping mad, of course; and I don't 
 know as I can blame him. He thinks I 
 did it to steal the water!" 
 
 " Oh, Harry!" 
 
 Mrs. Pureell could not at the moment 
 
THE YOUNG BITCH-BIDEB. 
 
 say more — did not need to say more — 
 to express the fullness of her feelings; 
 but her eyes brimmed with tears, and 
 Harry noticed that when she smoothed 
 down the apron her hands shook. 
 
 " I told him I didn't, but I could see 
 he wouldn't believe me; and I reckon 
 there can't be any doubt he'll repeat it 
 all around, and be glad of the oppor- 
 tunity!" 
 
 " You must tell him again that you 
 didn't do it, Harry! Be careful how you 
 approach him, though! I don't suppose 
 it could have been the work of one of the 
 Carmon boys? They don't like you, you 
 know!" 
 
 Harry ran his fingers thoughtfully 
 through the pony's mane. 
 
 " I don't believe that either Ike or Joe 
 would do a trick like that. They might 
 meet me in the middle of the road and 
 knock me down, but they're not under- 
 handed." 
 
 "Well, my son, do not let us be dis- 
 couraged or unhappy over this, although 
 it does look very dark. You have the 
 support of your own conscious integrity; 
 the undoubting faith of your mother in 
 your honesty of purpose and action; and 
 you pray daily ' Deliver us from evil.' 
 Can you not trust the Master to answer 
 your prayer?" 
 
 " I will try, mother, but it is very hard 
 to bear suspicion when one is innocent." 
 
 "Far easier, my son, than if you were 
 guilty, for then you would have not only 
 
 the reproach of men, but your own con- 
 science to add to your misery. ' Com- 
 mit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in 
 him, and he shall bring it to pass.' " 
 
 " Well, I've shut off all the water, and 
 now I'm going down to open Baily's gate. 
 I'll be careful what I say to him," as he 
 saw her lips opening again in warning. 
 
 Then he clattered away across the 
 dusty trail, and on through the buffalo 
 grass, which was as dry in that month of 
 June as if cured for hay. 
 
 Baily had his team out and was plowing 
 some furrows across his wheat field, to 
 draw the water and cause it to spread 
 more rapidly when it came. He did not 
 come up to the water-gate; and, when it 
 had been set and locked, Harry rode on 
 down the ditch toward the other farms, 
 relieved that he had an excuse for not ap- 
 proaching the cross-grained old farmer. 
 
 There were many places to visit and 
 many gates to set, weary miles to be trav- 
 ersed, and many men with many griev- 
 ances to encounter. Harry did his work 
 faithfully and well, glad to assure the 
 settlers that the long-expected rise was at 
 hand. But to none of them did he find 
 courage to speak of the opened water- 
 gate, though he felt sure an uncharitable 
 account of it would soon be poured into 
 their ears. 
 
 When he returned home the afternoon 
 was far spent. The mid-day meal, long 
 kept warm for him, had grown cold. Be- 
 fore eating it he rode to the gate which 
 
10 
 
 THE YOUNG EITCH-BWEE. 
 
 he had so tightly locked, set it to the 
 proper limit, and turned the water into 
 the lateral that led to the wheat. All 
 the farmers on that line of ditch were re- 
 ceiving their stipulated flow and the ditch 
 was brimming. He saw no good reason 
 why the work of an enemy should cause 
 his mother's crops to be stinted now. 
 
 His mother went into the field with 
 him after dinner, and together they 
 worked till dark in their efforts to lead 
 the water over as much ground as pos- 
 sible. When they were forced to stop by 
 reason of the darkness, Harry left the 
 water running into the lateral, as he had 
 a right to do, and in the morning was 
 gratified to find that more than two- 
 thirds of the field had been satisfactorily 
 covered. 
 
 Though the work of irrigating was too 
 hard for a woman, Mrs. Purcell con- 
 tinued it through that day and the next; 
 while Harry rode the ditch, helping her 
 an hour or so at a time as he found oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 The farmers were in better spirits. It 
 seemed that, after all, the crops would 
 not be a failure. The wheat and oats 
 would be short, but much might yet be 
 done with this productive soil; and, 
 though the hot winds still blew, their 
 power to harm was stayed. 
 
 The second morning, when Harry went 
 into the alfalfa field, which still needed 
 water along its lower slopes, he found the 
 water-gate again locked wide open, as on 
 
 that first occasion. He looked about, 
 hoping to find a clew to the perpetrator 
 of the wrong, but saw only some tracks, 
 that had probably been made the previous 
 day by his own wading-boots. 
 
 He went back to the house much per- 
 turbed and told his mother of his dis- 
 covery. 
 
 " I'm going to watch that field to- 
 night! I've shut off the water, and 
 maybe the fellow will come back and try 
 it again. It's some one who wants to in- 
 jure me. Who is our greatest enemy, 
 mother?" He looked her straight in the 
 face. " I believe it has been in your 
 thought for some time, just as it's been in 
 mine, that it may have been the work of 
 Mr. Baily!" 
 
 " I'm afraid we do him wrong, 
 though!" she protested. "You won't 
 hint it to anybody?" 
 
 " No; but I'm going to watch the field 
 to-night." 
 
 A thought of the danger he might in- 
 cur flashed on her and made her endeavor, 
 somewhat feebly, to dissuade him from 
 his purpose; but he was firm in his de- 
 termination. 
 
 It was past midnight when he entered 
 the field. He had sat by the west win- 
 dow a long time watching the field by 
 -the light of the moon. Now the moon 
 had gone down. But in that dry, thin 
 atmosphere the stars shone with wondrous 
 brilliance. 
 
 As he walked along the embankment, 
 
THE YOVNG DITCH-BIDEB. 
 
 11 
 
 a prairie dog owl, disturbed from its 
 position on a mound, flew scolding and 
 chattering about his head; and a big, 
 gray jack-rabbit, that had been feeding 
 in the alfalfa, leaped away for a dozen 
 yards with jerky bounds, then uplifted 
 itself on its hind legs on the margin of a 
 lateral, a ghostly shape in the uncertain 
 light. 
 
 The tired youth cast himself down on 
 the dry embankment some distance from 
 the water-gate and began his lonesome 
 vigil. As he looked up at the stars, that 
 seemed so like luminous gems or points 
 of fire, and reflected that the skies of the 
 Orient were as bright, he could not won- 
 der that the Chaldeans became astrono- 
 mers and astrologers; and the story of the 
 watching Judean shepherds took on new 
 meaning. Crickets chirped in the grass, 
 some joyous frogs croaked in a depression 
 in the field which the ditch water had 
 bountifully filled, and a few belated in- 
 sects buzzed about his ears. 
 
 He knew that his mother was watching 
 by the window, where he had left her, 
 filled with anxiety for his safety, and lift- 
 ing up her steadfast heart in prayer that 
 the threatened evil might be averted or 
 made a messenger for good. He did not 
 intend to molest the wrong-doer, should 
 that person come again, but thoughts of 
 what might grow out of such a visit and 
 discovery were sufficient to keep his mind 
 abnormally active and drive away all de- 
 sire for sleep. 
 
 But the drowsiness came after awhile, 
 and his head dropped on the ground. A 
 sudden outbreak of hideous sound sent a 
 thrill through him and awoke him to the 
 fact that he had been fairly asleep. He 
 sat up on the embankment and rubbed his 
 eyes. On the ridge, a half mile distant, 
 some coyotes had broken into pursuit of 
 a jack-rabbit. Whether there were two or 
 a half-dozen he could not tell, as that 
 chorus of yelping and "ki-yi-ing" shrilled 
 through the night. 
 
 The sounds swept on over the ridge and 
 across the plains, growing fainter and 
 fainter, and finally ceased. Probably the 
 coyotes had caught the unfortunate 
 " jack "; a thing not at all certain, how- 
 ever, as the jack is blessed with wonder- 
 ful legs and dodging abilities. 
 
 Then something moved between the 
 watcher and the western sky; and, flatten- 
 ing himself on the embankment, Harry 
 saw a man walk down along the ditch and 
 step into the alfalfa field. He could not 
 make out the form, and the face was 
 wholly invisible. 
 
 His heart leaped and his nerves tingled 
 as he fancied this was the individual who 
 had opened the water-gate and dammed 
 the ditch. 
 
 He was surprised, though, when the 
 man, on entering the field, dropped softly 
 to the earth instead of advancing to the 
 gate. 
 
 The man disappeared from sight when 
 he dropped down. Harry marked the 
 
12 
 
 THE YOUNG DITCH-EIDER. 
 
 spot and watched it a long time with 
 breathless earnestness, but could observe 
 no motion. A little mound seemed to 
 have grown there, and he fancied this 
 mound the head and shoulders of the 
 man; but of even this he could not be 
 sure. 
 
 He feared to move on the embankment 
 lest he should be seen, and, his position 
 growing cramped, he slowly and carefully 
 stretched out one leg and then the other, 
 to relieve them. The mound in the 
 alfalfa did not stir. Everything was so 
 still that Harry fancied he could hear his 
 own heart beat. He could certainly feel 
 its thumping, and the arteries in his neck 
 seemed to swell and grow warm. The 
 trembling that at first affected him sub- 
 sided after awhile, though it left him with 
 a feeling of muscular weakness. 
 
 The vigil that followed was tedious and 
 trying. The stars swung slowly westward 
 and the night grew chillingly cold. 
 Finally a silvery gray crept into the 
 eastern sky, forerunner of the dawn. 
 
 Then the mound stirred. It lifted and 
 resolved itself again into a man. It 
 walked and approached the water-gate. 
 It stopped on the embankment and 
 stooped down to inspect the gate and 
 ditch. Harry PurcelPs heart gave a 
 greater bound than at first. The man 
 was Mr. Baily! 
 
 Baily did not tarry long beside the 
 ditch. The brightening in the east 
 warned him to be gone, and he set off 
 
 down the embankment and was soon lost 
 to view. Not until he was well out of 
 sight did the mystified ditch-rider venture 
 to sit up. 
 
 Then the meaning of what he had be- 
 held grew clear to him. Taking it for 
 granted that Baily had come to open the 
 gate, Harry had been sorely puzzled to 
 account for the fact that not even a finger 
 had been placed on the lock. Now he 
 saw that he had misjudged the man. 
 Baily had not come to open the gate — 
 his stealthy visit to the field had been in 
 the hope of catching Harry in the act. 
 
 The young ditch - rider blew out his 
 breath in a whistle of surprise. 
 
 " If he feels that way about it, it can't 
 be that he opened it himself!" 
 
 He walked back to the house thought- 
 ful and puzzled. His mother, who had 
 fallen asleep in her chair by the window, 
 awoke, cramped and cold, as be stepped 
 through the doorway. 
 
 " Poor little mother!" he said, smooth- 
 ing her hair affectionately. " You should 
 not have tried to sit up!" 
 
 "I declare, if it isn't daylight!" as she 
 glanced through the window. 
 
 Then he told her of what he had seen 
 and of his conclusions. 
 
 She was a perfectly honest little body 
 and able to deal justly even with Rich- 
 mond Baily. She recognized in the dis- 
 covery absolute proof of Baily's innocence 
 of the thing with which they had charged 
 him. 
 
TEE YOUNG DITCH-BIDHB. 
 
 13 
 
 "Well, he didn't catch me tampering 
 with the gate, and I expect that disap- 
 pointed him!" Harry asserted. "Now I 
 
 The man was Mr. Baily!— See page 12. 
 
14 
 
 THE YOUNG DITCH-BIDE R. 
 
 must feed the stock. I guess it won't 
 surprise them to hurt if they get their 
 breakfast a little early." 
 
 After again talking the matter over 
 with his mother, Harry determined to 
 confide his troubles to Jason Bigelow. 
 Bigelow lived two or three miles away, 
 but on the same lateral or branch canal. 
 He was from Ohio, as were the Purcells, 
 and State ties count for much when there 
 are no closer bonds. He was a sensible 
 man, able to give good advice if nothing 
 else. 
 
 So Harry rode over to Bigelow's and 
 told his troubles. Bigelow listened with 
 quiet attention, making no comment 
 until the boy had finished. 
 
 " I've heard a little something about 
 that, though I wasn't prepared to believe 
 you guilty." 
 
 Harry's face flushed. " Mr. Baily told 
 you, of course?" 
 
 "No, Mr. Baily didn't tell me. He 
 told Lee's folks about it, though, and one 
 of the Lee boys told me. Baily says he 
 is sure you opened the gate. Of course 
 such a report will hurt you, if it is not 
 contradicted. I'm glad you've spoken to 
 me and explained the thing, for now I'll 
 know what to say, whenever it's men- 
 tioned." 
 
 As he departed from Bigelow's and 
 went on to ride the ditch Harry expected 
 to see an accusation in every face. But 
 there was little, if anything, of the kind. 
 The farmers were too busy and withal 
 
 too glad to get the water, to give much 
 heed to anything but the work that now 
 pressed them. 
 
 But before nightfall he heard from two 
 other men that Baily had been circulating 
 the damaging report. The men volun- 
 teered the information, begging to assure 
 him they did not believe it; for all of 
 which he expressed his gratitude. 
 
 " If I was you I'd go to Baily and I'd 
 say to him flatly that he had to stop it," 
 one of the men advised; and with the 
 words ringing in his ears Harry galloped 
 home. 
 
 He did not sleep much that night; and 
 the next morning, as soon as he had fin- 
 ished certain work that claimed his atten- 
 tion, he set out to make another call on 
 Mr. Bigelow. 
 
 The big ditch was brimming full of 
 water that morning, a thing calculated 
 to make his heart glad. 
 
 Before comiDg to Bigelow's, and when 
 full a quarter of a mile from the build- 
 ings, he reined in beside a boy who was 
 utilizing the overflow of the ditch to- 
 drown out a small colony of prairie dogs. 
 
 It was Bigelow's boy, Billy, a lively 
 urchin of nine or ten, who had his 
 trousers rolled up and was splashing 
 about in much excitement. 
 
 The embankments were rather low at 
 that point, and the brimming ditch 
 spilled some of its contents into the buf- 
 falo grass. With a long-handled irrigat- 
 ing spade Billy Bigelow had excavated a 
 
TEE YOUNG DITCH-MDER. 
 
 15 
 
 small trench, that led from the little 
 hollow where the waters were collect- 
 ing to the nearest dog hole, and he was 
 now ready to turn the water into the 
 hole. 
 
 On the grass near by, tied up snug and 
 fast, were two hapless dogs, that squirmed 
 in wild alarm as the pony's feet trampled 
 near them. They were rolly-poly fellows, 
 With fat cheeks, round bodies and short 
 tails, looking something like squirrels but 
 not at all like dogs. 
 
 Billy Bigelow was deep in a big specu- 
 lation. The stage to Cactus Crossing ran 
 close by his father's door, and he fre- 
 quently had opportunity to sell tame 
 prairie dogs to the passengers, who car- 
 ried them to their Eastern homes as 
 curiosities. Heretofore, what prairie 
 dogs Billy had been able to obtain he had 
 caught with a steel trap whose jaws were 
 wound with cloth. But the dogs were 
 wary and hard to catch with the trap. 
 Now, with the overflow, Billy believed it 
 possible to drown out and secure the 
 whole colony. It was a stupendous en- 
 terprise, for live prairie dogs had some- 
 times brought as high as fifty cents 
 apiece. 
 
 "Now jist watch him come a-bilin'!" 
 Billy yelled, tearing out with his fingers 
 the little clam that barred the water from 
 the hole, and slipping his muddy right 
 hand into a cast-off leather glove. 
 
 For the moment Harry Purcell forgot 
 the errand which had brought him to 
 
 Bigelow's, and watched Billy with boyish 
 interest. 
 
 The accumulated water gurgled into 
 the hole for several seconds at a lively 
 rate. Then a badly-scared and half- 
 drowned prairie dog scrambled out ahead 
 of the water that was rising in the hole 
 and popped into . Billy's gloved hand. 
 It fought and bit, as a rat might have 
 done; but Billy quickly slipped over its 
 feet and neck some ready-made nooses 
 and had it kicking helplessly on the grass 
 beside the others. 
 
 "Well, I must ride on to the house, 
 for I want to see your father," Harry de- 
 clared. 
 
 Whereupon, Billy leaped up, with a 
 flushed face, and began to fish for some- 
 thing in one of his pockets. 
 
 " I forgot to tell you about it. Pa 
 wanted to see you this morning, but he 
 had to go away, and he told me to come 
 out here by the ditch and give you this 
 letter when you went past." 
 
 He drew out a folded piece of paper, 
 which, covered with muddy finger-prints, 
 he handed up to the young ditch-rider. 
 
 Harry hastily pulled it open and read, 
 with paling cheeks: 
 
 " Mr. Baily is circulating a petition among 
 the ditch patrons asking the manager to re- 
 move you from your position, and he has got 
 several of them to sign it. He asked me, but I 
 refused, and told him I thought he was en- 
 gaged in a mighty small piece of business, and 
 that I felt sure you hadn't done the- things he 
 charged. I won't get to see you to-day, ;.s I 
 have to go to town; but I write this to put /ou 
 
16 
 
 THE YOUNG BITCH-BIDEB. 
 
 on your guard. Head him off! That is my 
 advice. Write to the manager and tell him 
 everything and refer him to me. You can get 
 your letter there ahead of Baily's petition, if 
 you're quick about it. Your friend, 
 
 Jason Bigelow ' 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 A SERIOUS ACCUSATION. 
 
 AILY'S amazing 
 
 accusation angered 
 Harry Pur cell; 
 and when he had 
 reread Bigelow's 
 letter, to make 
 sure he could not 
 be mistaken in the 
 character of its 
 contents, he hast- 
 ened home, resolved to follow Bigelow's 
 advice and hurry an explanation to the 
 manager of the Goleonda. 
 
 This explanation was not easy to pen; 
 for, when he sat down to commit the 
 whole matter to paper, he found the 
 story a very long one. He did not want 
 to he tedious, but he did want to set him- 
 self right in the eyes of the manager 
 and to make that gentleman understand 
 how earnestly he was striving to fulfill 
 the duties of his position. 
 
 When he had finished .the letter, he 
 Tead it aloud to his mother; and, as she 
 found nothing objectionable in it, he 
 placed it in a stamped envelope, which he 
 
 addressed, and then walked out to the 
 trail over which the star-route mail car- 
 rier passed each day about noon on his 
 way to Golden City. 
 
 Harry stood by the side of the trail 
 with the letter in his hand until the car- 
 rier drew up and reached out to take it. 
 The pony and buckboard, as well as the 
 driver, were splashed with muddy water. 
 
 " The ditch has been running over at 
 the first bridge," the carrier reported. 
 "I had to go around a little, and the 
 wheels cut the bank some. I got out and 
 fixed the break as well as I could, but 
 maybe you'd better look after it." 
 
 To this task Harry devoted himself 
 without delay, and then returned to the 
 house to get his dinner. 
 
 " I'm going over to see Mr. Baily," he 
 announced, when the meal was finished. 
 "I'll be careful to say nothing at which 
 he can get offended, but I shall insist 
 that he's decidedly mistaken in thinking 
 I opened the water-gate, and that he's 
 doing me a wrong in telling it." 
 
 " You won't get into a quarrel with 
 him, Harry?" Mrs. Purcell begged. " I 
 don't know but that you ought to keep 
 away from him entirely." 
 
 She did not urge him to forego the 
 visit, however. She was quite as anxious 
 as he that the damaging reports should 
 cease. She could see how the thing was 
 telling on him. He was not looking well, 
 and her mother's keen eyes told her that 
 the worry and hard work were threatening 
 
THE YOUNG DITCH-B1DEB. 
 
 17 
 
 to break him down. He had long ceased 
 to enjoy sound sleep. 
 
 Baily was running some streams of 
 water down the rows of Kaffir corn, as 
 Harry rode into the field. He stopped 
 the work to look up inquiringly, and 
 frowned when he saw who the visitor was. 
 
 " I want to speak to you about that 
 water-gate," said Harry, controlling his 
 feelings as well as he could. " I believe 
 you'll be willing to treat me fairly, if I 
 can convince you that you're mistaken 
 about the matter." 
 
 Baily's face grew red and he lifted a 
 hand angrily. 
 
 " I've seen enough of you, young man, 
 to know that I don't want to see any more 
 of you, and the less we have to do with 
 each other the better! If you say any- 
 thing it will only be to tell lies. When I 
 know a thing I know it, and that ends 
 it!" 
 
 "But you can be mistaken!" Harry 
 protested. 
 
 Baily again waved his hand. 
 
 " I don't want to hear anything! Not 
 a thing!" 
 
 Harry sat quite still for a . moment, 
 vexation and anger filling him and threat- 
 ening to break out in words. Then he 
 mastered his feelings and turned away. 
 It was quite useless, he saw, to try to rea- 
 son with Mr. Baily; even worse than use- 
 less. 
 
 There was a choking lump in his throat 
 and blinding tear-drops in his eyes as he 
 
 galloped the pony up along the ditch. 
 Back of the lump and the tears was the 
 sting of wounded pride. Baily's manner 
 had been crushingly cruel. 
 
 " It's strange how mean some men can 
 be! But I'll make him sorry for that yet! 
 I'll show him that he's mistaken when he 
 thinks I could stoop to so low a trick!" 
 
 How that was to be shown, though, the 
 young ditch-rider could not have told. 
 
 The ditch was nearly empty the next 
 morning, and, when Harry rode to the 
 river to ascertain the cause, he found 
 that some large holes had been washed in 
 the dam. 
 
 It was a cheap and unsubstantial 
 structure of sod, that ran diagonally up 
 .the river for nearly a fourth of a mile but 
 did not cross it. Its purpose was to divert 
 water from the channel into the Gol- 
 conda Company's main canal. It an- 
 swered well enough so long as it' held to- 
 gether. But floods weakened it and fre- 
 quently carried portions of it away; so 
 that often when water was most needed 
 and there was an abundance in the river 
 the crops were wilting from drouth. 
 
 This was of course the fault of the Gol- 
 conda Company, which, from the start, 
 had pursued a penny-wise-and-pound- 
 foolish policy. The company plainly 
 wanted to make a great dea'l of money 
 from a comparatively meager investment, 
 always a difficult thing to do. 
 
 Harry wrote another letter to the man- 
 ager that day, telling him of the con- 
 
18 
 
 TEE YOUNG D1TCH-BIBEB. 
 
 dition of the wing dam and asking that he 
 might be authorized to repair it in a man- 
 ner to make it practically secure. 
 
 He gave this letter also to the mail car- 
 rier, and then, with some young men 
 whom he secured to help him, he went to 
 work to repair the damage as well as he 
 could in an inexpensive manner. Bags 
 of sand were sunk in the crevasses until 
 the bottom of the wall had been replaced; 
 and on top of this, a barrier of earth and 
 sod was reared, as had been done origin- 
 ally. 
 
 The manager believed that if willows 
 could be induced to grow on a dam of this 
 kind it would in time become stronger 
 than if made of stone or timber. Harry, 
 therefore, as he had done before, set wil- 
 low cuttings along its top. The dam 
 looked well enough when done, but he 
 feared it would not stand the strain. Nor 
 did it. A spurt in the river two days 
 later took it out and made the hole bigger 
 than before. 
 
 In the meantime nothing could be 
 heard from the manager. The crops be- 
 gan to need another watering. Many of 
 the farmers had not been able to cover 
 all their cultivated land, and the fields 
 that remained untouched were threatened 
 with utter ruin. 
 
 Harry knew that the farmers had just 
 cause for complaint. He was distressed, 
 too, by the non-arrival of a letter in reply 
 to the ones he had sent. 
 
 In the midst of it all, and when the 
 
 work and worry bore hardest, he again 
 found the water - gate open into his 
 mother's alfalfa field. There was very 
 little water in the ditch at the time, but 
 that little was being forced into the field 
 as before by a dam across the ditch. 
 
 He was bewildered and indignant. 
 The mystery of these repeated openings 
 of the water-gate he had not been able to 
 fathom. He had ceased to accuse Baily 
 of the deed. Still, he could not doubt 
 that it was the work of some enemy who 
 was desperately determined to ruin his 
 reputation. 
 
 The matter rested so heavily on him 
 that it almost unfitted him for work. He 
 went to the river again the next day, and 
 returned home much belated. Taking 
 the short cut by Dutton's school-house, 
 he saw lights flashing from the windows, 
 and the shapes of men and horses moving 
 between him and them. 
 
 He turned aside and approached the 
 building. He had not heard that there 
 was to be any "literary" or other meet- 
 ing there that night. This was strange, 
 as he was iisually notified of such events — 
 for they were really events in the lives of 
 the people whose homes clustered along 
 the canals and laterals of the Golconda 
 Company. 
 
 As he moved towards the school-house, 
 an undefined sense of impending ill came 
 over him. Riding up to the hitching- 
 rack that ran along the rear of the house, 
 he swung half out of the saddle, and sat 
 
THE YOUNG DITCH-B1DEB. 
 
 19 
 
 thus, unconscious of his awkward posi- 
 tion, while these words came to his 
 ears. 
 
 " I tell you what, the farmers here 
 must build and own their own ditch. 
 They can do it. I'm in favor of forming 
 an irrigation district and of mortgaging 
 our farms for every penny they're worth 
 to put the thing through. Then we'll be 
 independent of this thieving company, 
 and of the men who run it!" 
 
 The young ditch-rider swung on down 
 to the ground, removed his foot from the 
 stirrup, and prepared to tie the pony to 
 the rack. 
 
 He knew now that an indignation 
 meeting of the ditch patrons had been 
 called. Such a thing had been hinted at 
 more than once, though he had not 
 thought much about it. Whether the 
 Golconda Company was giving as good 
 service as its funds would permit, was an 
 open question. But that the farmers 
 could construct and operate a ditch of 
 their own was not an open question with 
 him. He felt sure they could not. Many 
 of them were hovering on the verge of 
 want, and there were few indeed whose 
 places and stock were not mortgaged for 
 greater or less sums, obtained to help 
 them along when they began the new life 
 on the plains. 
 
 Before he had got his lariat fast to the 
 pole, a man came around the corner of 
 the school-house. It was Bigelow, who 
 had stepped out to make sure his pony 
 
 was all right. He saw Harry, but did not 
 recognize him in the darkness until Harry 
 spoke. 
 
 Bigelow hesitated before replying. 
 
 " I ought to have told you about this 
 meeting, I reckon, for I was informed of 
 it yesterday; but I didn't see that it would 
 do you any good, and I thought it might 
 do harm, for I fancied maybe you'd want 
 to attend. That's something I'd advise 
 you not to do. The farmers are mad and 
 Baily is stirring them up. You're not 
 authorized to do anything, you see, and 
 when they jump on you about the way 
 the ditch business is being run, as they're 
 sure to do, you won't be able to give any 
 answers that will please them. 
 
 " I'll see that you get a fair representa- 
 tion, Harry. Better go on home and 
 never speak as if you knew such a meet- 
 ing had been held. I'll tell you to-mor- 
 row what's been done. They're more 
 mad at the manager than at you. He 
 didn't do just the square thing by them 
 last spring, they think. And now that 
 wing dam is about the last straw!" • -, 
 
 " I'm obliged to you for your kindness, 
 Mr. Bigelow, and I'll go on home if you 
 think I'd better. To-morrow, if I get no 
 letter, I'm going to telegraph the man- 
 ager, asking authority to spend a hundred 
 dollars in strengthening the dam. I 
 don't see why I haven't heard from him." 
 
 So he rode on home and Bigelow went 
 back into the school-house. 
 
 Harry Purcell slept less that night than 
 
20 
 
 TEE YOUNG D1TCE-B1DER. 
 
 usual. In imagination he heard the 
 angry words of the farmers and the accus- 
 ing tones of Richmond Baily. 
 
 He learned the next morning that his 
 worst fears fell short of the reality. In- 
 formation of just what Baily did say was 
 brought him by a young friend, Jasper 
 Stanton, who lived in the second section 
 north. 
 
 " He says he's been lying out in your 
 alfalfa fields of nights, and that one night, 
 not long ago, he saw you come into the 
 field and open the water-gate. He says 
 you opened it and locked it open, and put 
 the dam in the ditch. He says he saw 
 you do it as plain as he ever saw any- 
 thing, and that he knows he wasn't mis- 
 taken. He held back telling about it, it 
 seems, until this meeting, when the farm- 
 ers were all together." 
 
 For a moment Harry was too astounded 
 to speak. Then he stammered: 
 
 " What do you think about it? You 
 didn't believe it?" 
 
 " I think he's not over-particular about 
 telling the truth." 
 
 " What did Mr. Bigelow do?" 
 
 "He didn't seem to know what to do. 
 He just sat there, with his mouth open, 
 as if he was paralyzed. But after awhile 
 he got up and said that the charge was a 
 very serious one, which he didn't feel 
 called on to believe until you had been 
 heard in your own behalf. He didn't in- 
 tend to say, he said, that Mr. Baily did 
 not mean to tell the truth, but there was 
 
 still a chance that Mr. Baily was mis- 
 taken." 
 
 " And no one else said a word?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, there was a good deal said. 
 Mr. Baily declared a dozen times that he 
 knew he was right. And then, when the 
 meeting was over, he got out his petition 
 to have you taken off the ditch and asked 
 nearly every one to sign it." 
 
 " I'm glad some one was there who 
 wasn't willing to believe such a thing of 
 me right off-hand. There isn't a word of 
 truth in it. I shall go straight over to 
 Baily's and demand of him why he told 
 such a falsehood. He's got to answer me, 
 too!" 
 
 A hot rage had been kindled in the 
 heart of the young ditch-rider. His 
 whole being rose up in rebellion against 
 this unjust calumny. A sense of his in- 
 nocence sustained him. He could and 
 would resign his position, if that was de- 
 sired; but he would not leave the place 
 with a smirched reputation. That must 
 be cleared. Baily had made positive 
 statements. They should be explained or 
 retracted. 
 
 Without saying anything to his mother 
 on the subject, for he knew how the news 
 would pain her, Harry brought the buck- 
 skin pony out of the stable, saddled and 
 bridled it and rode away. 
 
 His indignation did not decrease as he 
 approached the Baily residence. It grew, 
 instead, until it heated his veins like a 
 fever. 
 
THE YOUNG DITCH-RIDER. 
 
 - i$ 
 
 A half-dozen bounds brought him to the spot. — See page 22. 
 
 Baily was not visible; and he drew neat 
 the house, riding around by way of the 
 corral and the grain stacks, which took 
 him along the border of the millet field. 
 
 Elsie was playing in the edge of the 
 millet, romping with the shepherd puppy, 
 and she ran toward Harry as he rode up, 
 the puppy racing at her heels. 
 
 Her sunbonnet, blown back from her 
 head, was held by its strings. Her bright 
 
22 
 
 THE YOUNG D1TCH-B1DEB. 
 
 hair, which had heen in curls — for Mrs. 
 Baily looked carefully after Elsie's per- 
 sonal appearance — flew in a silky tangle 
 about her face. The glow of health was 
 in her cheeks, a smile in her blue eyes, 
 and gleeful, childish laughter on her 
 lips. 
 
 The young ditch-rider drew rein almost 
 involuntarily and admiringly watched 
 her. He had never seen a lovelier pic- 
 ture. She was not afraid of him — in 
 truth she feared no one — and came 
 straight on along the millet until within 
 less than a dozen yards. 
 
 Then she tried to spring backward, and 
 fell prone to the earth with a cry of 
 fright. The puppy gave one sniff, and 
 then ran by her and barked at something 
 wriggling in the grass. 
 
 Harry Purcell sprung from his saddle. 
 He knew what had happened. A prairie 
 rattler, hidden in the millet, had struck 
 its fangs into the child's flesh. 
 
 A half dozen bounds brought him to 
 the spot. He saw the rattler glide into a 
 hole in the earth, pursued and snapped at 
 by the shepherd puppy; then he caught 
 up the little girl. 
 
 " Did it bite you? Where is it?" 
 
 Elsie's face was as white as a sheet and 
 her blue eyes wide open with terror. She 
 gasped, as she tried to answer, and pointed 
 to her bare ankle. Two small punctures 
 showed where the fangs had taken hold 
 and poured out their poison. 
 
 Fortunately Harry had had some ex- 
 
 perience in dealing with snake bites. He 
 knew that prompt action was necessary, 
 and without another word he pressed his 
 lips to the wound and sucked out all the 
 poison he could. Then he picked her up 
 in his arms and ran with all speed to the 
 house. 
 
 " Elsie is snake bit!" he said, striving to 
 show no signs of flurry. He spoke to 
 Mrs. Baily, who got up surprisedly from 
 her work of sewing on some carpet rags 
 as he entered. 
 
 Elsie made no sound. She was so 
 utterly silent that she seemed to have 
 been deprived of the power of speech or 
 thought. But that she was entirely con- 
 scious was shown by the intelligent, 
 though frightened, look in her eyes, and 
 by the quickness with which she obeyed 
 his every injunction. 
 
 Mrs. Baily, on the other hand, was per- 
 fectly helpless. The terrible announce- 
 ment seemed to take from her what little 
 energy and self-possession she had. She 
 became a mere bundle of quivering nerves, 
 running hither and thither, trying vainly 
 to find the things he desired, and sobbing 
 out wildly in her alarm. 
 
 Baily was not at home, having gone to 
 a neighbor's to borrow a hay rake. 
 
 Harry glanced about the room. There 
 was nothing with which he could cauter- 
 ize the wound, and he hesitated to try to 
 cut it out with his dull pocket-knife. So 
 he twisted his handkerchief into a cord 
 and applied it to the limb as a tourniquet. 
 
Elsie compressed her lips, but no cry of 
 pain came from them. 
 
 Sirs. Baily was wandering abstractedly 
 about the room. 
 
 " I can't wait longer!" Harry an- 
 nounced. "A doctor's got to be had, 
 and the quickest way is to go to him. 
 Don't worry. She'll come out all right. 
 These things are not so dangerous when 
 they're taken in time! Good-by. Have 
 Mr. Baily come right on to town as soon 
 as he gets back!" 
 
 With this he again picked vip the little 
 girl, who had been lying, or rather half- 
 reclining, on the floor, with her head 
 pressed against the wall. 
 
 The obedient pony was standing with 
 rein down, just where he had left it. 
 Harry reached its side, after a quick run, 
 and climbed with Elsie into the deep 
 saddle. Then he set her in front of 
 him, clasped her firmly in his strong 
 arms, straightened the sunbonnet on 
 her head, and touched the pony with 
 his heels. 
 
 The trail to Golden City lay before him, 
 straight as an arrow and almost as level as 
 a ride. 
 
 " It's ten miles to town, Ponca!" he 
 said, as he lifted himself for the work. 
 " But we'll make it in time, or die. Now, 
 b-o!" 
 
 TEE YOUNG BITCH-BIDE B. 23 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A KIDE FOE LIFE. 
 
 \ HE pony lifted its ears 
 at that stern word of 
 command; and, from 
 the jog trot to 
 which the cudgeling 
 heels had urged it, 
 swung into a canter. 
 Mrs. Baily ran out of the house screaming 
 and wringing her hands; and the shep- 
 herd puppy chased into the dust cloud, 
 barking and snapping at the pony's 
 heels. 
 
 Harry Purcell held Elsie in as easy an 
 attitude as he could, letting most of her 
 weight rest on the saddle between his 
 body and the high pommel, and drove the 
 pony on across the wet ground by the 
 stock reservoir, and into the arrowy trail. 
 "Go, Ponca! Go!" he urged; and 
 Ponca, stretching out a scraggy, ewe-like 
 neck, went down the trail like a trained 
 hunter. 
 
 Fortunately the buckskin pony was 
 fresh from a night's rest. It was used to 
 hard riding, too. Day after day it had 
 been accustomed to gallop from twenty to 
 fifty miles, up and down the ditches and 
 across the mossy stretches of buffalo 
 grass. And it had the large lung-capacity 
 and the untiring endurance of the true 
 "Western broncho. 
 
 When the pony was running easily, 
 Harry dropped the reins on its neck, 
 
24 
 
 THE YOUNG DITCH-BIDER. 
 
 guided it with his knees when it needed 
 guiding, and lifted Elsie to a still easier 
 position in front of him, holding her 
 closely and lovingly in his arms. As he 
 did so he looked into her face. 
 
 He saw that she was sobbing frighten- 
 edly, and took it as a good indication. 
 Tears drenched her cheeks and a little 
 semicircle of dust showed beneath each 
 eye. The dust was blowing in clouds 
 from the upper part of the sorghum field, 
 where the pulverized soil had received no 
 water and the sorghum had died to the 
 ground. 
 
 The dirty semicircles walling in the 
 tears were so suggestive of dams holding 
 back the irrigating floods from overflow- 
 ing the fair fields of her face that the 
 young ditch-rider smiled in spite of his 
 great anxiety and the gravity of the situa- 
 tion. 
 
 It was the best thing he could have 
 done. She was quiveringly alive to every- 
 thing and the smile impressed her with 
 the belief that her condition was hopeful. 
 She tried to smile back. 
 
 " Oh, you're all right!" he cried, en- 
 couragingly. "We'll be at Dr. Sarine's 
 almost before you know it! I think I 
 got out nearly all the poison. Here's 
 Hudspeth's claim already!" 
 
 Elsie's ankle and leg pained her, but 
 she did not complain. The compressing 
 tourniquet seemed fairly to cut into the 
 flesh; but, knowing it had been applied 
 for a good reason, she kept her lips 
 
 tightly closed. The lips were very white, 
 as Harry noticed; and they quivered 
 tremulously. Spots in the cheeks burned 
 like fever. 
 
 They were going at a good gait. The 
 pony seemed to understand that some- 
 thing out of the common was expected of 
 it. Not often did the ditch-rider drive it 
 along thus with the reins swinging 
 loosely. 
 
 A mile w r as quickly passed over. 
 Harry lifted Elsie closer to his breast 
 with his strong right hand, and, bending 
 slightly forward, patted the willing pony 
 on the shoulder with his left. 
 
 " Good boy!" he encouragingly coaxed. 
 " Good boy!" 
 
 " We're beyond Hudspeth's windmill!" 
 he hopefully announced. " We'll soon 
 be at the ditch that crosses Cameron's 
 wheat field. You're feeling all right, 
 ain't you?" 
 
 He listened anxiously for the reply. 
 
 " Yes, sir!" 
 
 " And does your leg hurt you much?" 
 
 " Yes, sir!" 
 
 " It's the handkerchief I tied 'round it, 
 I guess. Here we are, at Cameron's 
 ditch!" 
 
 The little ditch was spanned by a 
 wooden bridge. He caught the rein and 
 gently lifted on it. The pony crossed the 
 bridge at a bound, and galloped on down 
 the trail, stretching out its ewe-neck and 
 distending its nostrils. There were as 
 yet no symptoms of tiring; though, when 
 
THE YOUNG DITCH-B1BEB. 
 
 25 
 
 Harry dropped the rein and slipped his 
 hand beneath the edge of the saddle cloth 
 he brought it away covered with foam. 
 
 He wiped off the foam on the pony's 
 hairy coat, then again changed Elsie's 
 
 he knew. The poison of the bite had not 
 been wholly extracted and it was begin- 
 ning to show its deadly work. 
 
 Again he bent forward and patted the 
 pony's neck. 
 
 The pony kept up the killing pace. — See page 26. 
 
 position, both for her ease and for his 
 own. As he did so he started and a 
 blanching look showed under the deep 
 tan of his face. The ankle and limb were 
 for a moment revealed, and he saw they 
 were swelling alarmingly. A part of this 
 was due to the tourniquet, but not all, as 
 
 "Good boy! Good boy! A little 
 faster! Just a little faster!" 
 
 Two miles 4iad sped, and the third was 
 reeling out beneath the pony's pounding 
 hoofs. It increased its pace a trifle, in 
 response to this appeal, pushed its nose 
 out a little farther, and threw its ears 
 
26 
 
 TEE YOUNG BITCE-BIDEB. 
 
 back as if to catch his lightest com- 
 mand. 
 
 Thus went two more miles. They 
 were cutting into the wind at an angle, 
 and it whistled by his ears, high-keyed 
 and shrill. The distance to town was 
 half covered, now. But a pang of fear 
 and dismay was tugging at the heart of 
 Harry Purcell. The child was becoming 
 a dead weight in his arms. 
 
 The swelling in the ankle and limb had 
 increased; and, to his fancy, even her 
 face seemed to be puffing. She began to 
 he unconscious and delirious at times, 
 though his voice would always stir her. 
 
 "How do you feel now?" he asked, as 
 he again shifted her on his arm. 
 
 He fancied he could see a dim blue 
 line reaching up the limb from the punc- 
 tures. 
 
 " Yes, sir!" 
 
 The answer was but a mumble, and it 
 was clear she had not rightly understood. 
 A lump rose in his throat and fairly 
 choked him. The fear that he might 
 reach town too late came like a stabbing 
 pain. Though the pony was doing its 
 "best, it seemed but to crawl, so great was 
 his eagerness and anxiety. 
 
 "Good Ponca! Good Ponca!" he 
 cried, his words an anguished appeal. 
 " We must make it! Faster! Faster! 
 Go! Go!" 
 
 The pony was sweating freely, and its 
 hreathing was not as easy as at the be- 
 ginning of the run; but, under this urg- 
 
 ing, it pluckily kept up the killing pace, 
 and even increased it by spurts. Little 
 streams of sweat collected on its legs and 
 ran down to its fetlocks, and around the 
 edge of the saddle cloth and under the 
 headstall of the bridle the lathery per- 
 spiration ridged itself in soapy foam. 
 
 Not once in the long, treeless stretch 
 had a human being been encountered. 
 At Nickerson's, one of the boys, who was 
 plowing in a field, had stopped his horses 
 and stared at the rider dashing down the 
 trail in that life-and-death race. He had 
 wondered about it; perhaps he had even 
 recognized the buckskin pony. But 
 rapid, even reckless riding, over those 
 breezy expanses, was a thing too common 
 for comment; and when the boy had gazed 
 at the horseman for a few seconds and had 
 questioned himself and his team as to 
 what the horseman carried before him on 
 the saddle, he lifted his lines and drove 
 on around the field. 
 
 Another mile, and then another, was 
 added to those passed over. The pony's 
 breathing could now be heard plainly 
 above the clatter of its hoofs. But the 
 town was in full view, and Harry even 
 fancied he could see the roof of Dr. 
 Sarine's office. 
 
 But his alarm had grown from fright 
 almost into a panic. A deathly look was 
 in the eyes of Elsie Baily. She had sunk 
 into a semi-stupor. Once, when ques- 
 tioned, she had complained of a pain in 
 her side, and he feared that this was an 
 
THE YOUNG DITCH-BIDEB. 
 
 27 
 
 indication that the poison was mounting 
 to her heart. The bound limb was so 
 enormously swollen that he was half 
 tempted to remove the tourniquet. 
 
 Just in the edge of town he encoun- 
 tered a cart with two men in it. They 
 recognized him and said something; and, 
 when he did not reply, they turned the 
 cart about in the trail and returned to 
 town. 
 
 Then the pony swept into the main 
 street, with the race fairly won. 
 
 Harry struck it sharply with his heels 
 as it bounded across the bridge at the 
 street entrance, for it seemed to think it 
 might now take things leisurely; and 
 again the ears went up, the nose was 
 pushed out, and the sharp, unshop hoofs 
 pounded on almost as energetically as at 
 first. 
 
 " Get up! Get up!" he commanded. 
 "Don't stop, now!" 
 
 The pony fairly flew down the street, 
 plucky and heroic to the last. 
 
 Near the center of town stood the doc- 
 tor's residence, which contained his office. 
 It was surrounded with fruit trees, and 
 cottonwoods grew along the sidewalk for 
 shade. Through these the sleepless wind 
 piped, while the dingy tin sign creaked on 
 its hinges or was banged to and fro. 
 
 As Harry approached the house, a 
 shower of dust and sand flew around the 
 corner, and out of this shower walked Dr. 
 Sarine. He was a stocky man, with a 
 pleasant face and smiling brown eyes, a 
 
 gray beard and rapidly whitening hair. 
 But in spite of these evidences of increas- 
 ing years his step was almost as springy 
 as a boy's. 
 
 He stopped, as he saw Harry draw the 
 pony in with a jerk and leap to the 
 ground with the child in his arms; and 
 then he turned back toward the office, for 
 he knew that his services were needed. 
 He was at the gate and opened it as 
 Harry ran up. 
 
 " Snake bit!" Harry exclaimed, breath- 
 lessly. " Baily's little girl!" 
 
 The office door stood open, and he 
 pushed on in without delay. Dr. Sarine 
 followed more leisurely, but with a grave 
 look. 
 
 " I was there when it was done, and I 
 sucked out the poison as well as I could, 
 and then came right here without a stop! 
 I rode hard!" 
 
 Dr. Sarine did not need to be told that 
 Harry had ridden hard. The pony stood 
 where it had been left, with drooping 
 head, hollow, heaving flanks, and quiver- 
 ing limbs. 
 
 Dr. Sarine knew Elsie Baily. He had 
 brought her out of an attack of fever two 
 years before, and more than once he had 
 been consulted by Baily for rheumatism 
 and by Mrs. Baily for a host of maladies. 
 
 In truth, those whom Dr. Sarine did 
 not know were few in number. His prac- 
 tice extended over the whole county, and 
 even reached to the lonely homes of the 
 cattle-raisers far beyond the influence of 
 
28 
 
 THE YOUNG DITCH-BIDER. 
 
 the fructifying ditch water. In the days 
 of the great herds, when the cattle kings 
 ruled the land, he had many times 
 ridden weary miles to save the life of 
 some unfortunate cowboy whom one of 
 the vicious little prairie rattlesnakes had 
 struck. 
 
 No man ever had a kinder heart, and 
 no man was ever more unostentatious. 
 His skill and his learning were free to all, 
 whether they were able to pay or not. 
 He is not painted from fancy, and it is 
 possible he may read these lines, for he 
 still lives to bless the little world in 
 which his lot has been cast. Should such 
 be the case, he will understand, it is 
 hoped, something of the appreciation in 
 which he is held by his neighbors, his 
 patients and his acquaintances, who are 
 also all his friends. 
 
 Dr. Sarine took hold of the case ener- 
 getically, without any fuss or formality. 
 He placed Elsie on the lounge, felt her 
 pulse and gave her a stimulant. Then he 
 removed the tourniquet, examined the 
 wound and applied permanganate of pot- 
 ash hypodermically. 
 
 Harry's heart almost stopped beating as 
 the doctor worked. He knew that a 
 crowd was gathering outside, and he 
 heard some of the questions of the people 
 who were looking in through the window. 
 T)r. Sarine turned the key in the lock, to 
 bar out the curious but well-meaning and 
 sympathetic throng, and worked on; and 
 soon the story was flying over the town 
 
 that Baily's little girl was snake-bitten 
 and was at the doctor's, dying. 
 
 Finally Harry caught the doctor's eye. 
 
 " She'll pull through," was Sarine's 
 hopeful statement, "though the bite is 
 in a bad place. You saved her life, I am 
 sure, when you sucked out the poison; 
 and at the peril of your own, too!" 
 
 Harry had not taken into consideration 
 the fact that he ran a risk in drawing out. 
 the poison from the wound with his lips; 
 but the danger, if he had thought of 
 it, would not have deterred him in the 
 least. 
 
 The sense of relief brought by the doe- 
 tor's words was overwhelming. Elsie 
 would not die! Until then Harry had 
 hardly known how great was his fatigue. 
 Excitement and the determination to 
 save the child's life had sustained him. 
 Now, as he got up from the chair into' 
 which he had dropped soon after enter- 
 ing the office, a giddiness and blindness- 
 came over him so that he would have 
 fallen had he not caught at the wall for 
 support. 
 
 " You're pretty well exhausted!" said 
 Dr. Sarine, giving him a sharp look. 
 " That was a big ride." 
 
 " Oh, I'm all right!" and Harry tried to 
 laugh. " Just save her. All I need is 
 rest!" 
 
 " Don't worry about her. She'll soon 
 be out of danger!" Sarine assured. " I've 
 saved many worse cases." 
 
 These words would have been precious 
 
THE YOUNG BITCH-BIDEB. 
 
 29 
 
 to the Bailys, at that time, if they could 
 have heard them. 
 
 When Harry Purcell rode away in that 
 cloud of dust, carrying Elsie, Mrs. Baily 
 had not known what to do. She watched 
 him dazedly for a little while. Then she 
 ran toward the stable; but, when half way 
 there, stopped hesitatingly, in a state of 
 distraction. 
 
 Elsie was the jewel of her heart, the 
 one creature for whom she would will- 
 ingly have laid down her life. She 
 clutched at her throat, as she looked again 
 at the pony receding so swiftly in the dust 
 cloud, and a half audible prayer went up 
 from her lips; then a pall of darkness 
 seemed gathering before her eyes. 
 
 In a few seconds she conquered the 
 feeling and went on toward the stable. 
 But her limbs shook under her and all 
 the strength had gone out of them. She 
 fairly reeled as she passed through the 
 door, and then she fell unconscious on 
 the fragrant alfalfa that choked the en- 
 trance. 
 
 When she recovered, the whole terrible 
 truth swept over her again, and she ran 
 out into the corral, which opened off from 
 the stable, and stared across the plains. 
 TSTot a hundred yards away, Baily was rid- 
 ing in on the hay rake, at a leisurely jog. 
 
 Mrs. Baily hurried out of the corral 
 and ran screaming toward him. He 
 reined in, as she came near, and sought to 
 understand her. 
 
 So accustomed was he to doing things 
 
 without consulting her, that, when he at 
 length understood, he brought the whip 
 down with a cut that took him by her 
 and on to the house at a gallop. Mrs. 
 Baily ran after him, shouting something 
 which he did not stop to heed or even 
 listen to. 
 
 He jumped down from the seat of the 
 hay rake, ran to the stable, and was lead- 
 ing out another pony when she came 
 breathlessly up. 
 
 "Bring me the saddle!" he ordered. 
 " Then take the pony out of the rake and 
 turn him into the stable. You can git 
 the harness off, and — " 
 
 " I'm going with you, Richmond Baily! 
 Put the ponies to the spring wagon. Do 
 you think I could stay here while maybe 
 Elsie's dying there in town?" 
 
 New life seemed to have come to her. 
 The mother - instinct, that power which 
 rouses and transforms the most timid of 
 God's creatures, lifted her, making her 
 strong and courageous. 
 
 Baily, so long unaccustomed to con- 
 sider her desires and feelings that the 
 thing had become a mental habit, stared 
 in amazement. But he began to obey 
 without a word. 
 
 Not many minutes were lost in hitching 
 up. The harness went on in some 
 fashion, and Mr. and Mrs. Baily climbed 
 over the front wheels into the stiff -backed 
 seat of the spring wagon. Then the 
 whip was laid across the backs of the 
 ponies in a way to send them down the 
 
30 THE YOUNG 
 
 trail at a pace almost as rapid as that 
 taken by the young ditch-rider. 
 
 " How long's he been gone ?" Baily 
 ventured to ask, squinting up at the 
 sun. 
 
 " He's half way there!" she answered. 
 
 After that they subsided into a silence 
 that was broken only by the clatter of the 
 feet of the ponies, the rattle of the wagon, 
 and the " b-r-r, b-r-r," of drouth-loosened 
 spokes. 
 
 How long the distance to town seemed! 
 Never had the trail appeared so endless. 
 But Baily did not spare the ponies, and 
 they were almost ready to fall in their 
 tracks when the main street was gained 
 and the wagon rolled down it bearing 
 those anxious hearts. 
 
 Mr. Baily climbed stiffly out, for he had 
 hardly shifted his position since the mo- 
 ment of leaving home; a sympathetic 
 store-keeper, who was passing, came for- 
 ward to assist Mrs. Baily; and some 
 loungers, who had been lingering about 
 the house, stepped up to care for the 
 ponies. 
 
 " Is— is— " 
 
 Baily could not finish the question. 
 He looked dumbly around at his wife, 
 who was advancing, aided by the store- 
 keeper; and then he stumbled blindly 
 through the gateway and up to the door. 
 
 The office door was opened from within 
 and Dr. Sarine stood before him. Beyond 
 Sarine, on a lounge, lay a small form, 
 half hidden from sight. 
 
 DITCH-RIDER. 
 
 Baily's face became ashy. His heart 
 gave a great bound and seemed to stop its 
 beating. Dr. Sarine smiled and pushed 
 by him to help Mrs. Baily. 
 
 "Your little girl is all right!" he said. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DEBT REPAID. 
 
 AERY PURCELL did 
 not leave Doctor 
 Sarine's office un- 
 til sure Elsie Baily 
 was well out of 
 danger.- She was 
 unconscious and 
 lying on the lounge, but the doctor as- 
 sured him her condition at that time was 
 chiefly due to the treatment administered. 
 Harry had not forgotten his pony, and 
 he looked about for it as he came out and 
 while he was being plied with questions. 
 Ponca was standing hitched to a post 
 some distance away, with head down, but 
 apparently much rested. The saddle and 
 bridle were close by under a cottonwood. 
 Going over to the pony, Harry laid his 
 face softly against its neck, where the 
 sweat was drying in salty scales, and 
 stroked its head and mane, while his tears 
 flowed. Ponca looked about, thrust a soft 
 nose against the stroking hand, and whin- 
 nied as if in sympathy. 
 
THE YOUNG BITGH-BIDEB. 
 
 31 
 
 "We saved her, Ponca!" Harry whis- 
 pered. "We saved her!" 
 
 Feeling that the plucky pony had 
 earned the best procurable, Harry took it 
 to a livery stable, gave it some water, a 
 feed of grain and unlimited hay, and 
 patiently and lovingly rubbed it down. 
 
 Returning toward Sarine's, after an ab- 
 sence of more than half an hour, he saw 
 Baily emerge from the office and step into 
 the street. He had been thinking of 
 Baily and of Mrs. Baily. He felt sorry 
 for them and likewise glad, for Elsie still 
 lived and would get well; but he was not 
 at all sure he wanted to meet Mr. Baily 
 or speak to him, for he still felt that 
 Baily had done him a cruel wrong. He 
 was beginning to harbor, too, a belittling 
 sense of self -congratulation, and to feel 
 that he had effectually heaped coals of fire 
 on the head of his enemy. 
 
 Baily saw him, however, and came 
 toward him; and Harry could not find it 
 in his heart to avoid a meeting with this 
 man, who so evidently wanted to speak to 
 him. 
 
 Baily fumbled a buttonhole with the 
 fingers of his right hand and thrust the 
 left deep into a pocket as he stepped in 
 front of the young ditch-rider, who some- 
 what coldly returned his greeting. His 
 manner was hesitating and he was evi- 
 dently at a loss for words. 
 
 " There ain't no use pretendin' that I 
 can pay you fer what you've done fer me," 
 he began, " fer I can't! The doctor says 
 
 you saved the life of my little girl. I 
 thank you fer that from the bottom of my 
 heart, and I'm sorry that I ever said any- 
 thing ag'in you!" 
 
 He released the buttonhole and feebly 
 extended the hand for a reconciliation. 
 
 Harry was minded to refuse it, but 
 checked the impulse, and Baily crushed 
 the boy's fingers in an emotional grip. 
 
 " I'm glad to have served you, Mr. 
 Baily. But you will see that we can't 
 very well be friends, so long as you tell 
 people I opened that gate!" Harry ob- 
 served. " You wronged me there, and I 
 think you ought to right it!" 
 
 Baily gave him an earnest look and the 
 grip relaxed. 
 
 " I'll never speak of it ag'in, I promise 
 you, Harry! I can keep my mouth shut 
 as tight as anybody, I reckon!" 
 
 Harry stared. It was plain from the 
 tone that Baily still believed him guilty 
 and that this was merely a promise of 
 silence. The young ditch-rider's sun- 
 burned cheeks reddened and he drew his 
 hand away. 
 
 Baily felt the awkwardness of the sit- 
 uation and fumbled again with the ragged 
 buttonhole. 
 
 " I can't pay you fer what you've done. 
 Sich things can't be paid fer! But I'll be 
 your friend, if you'll let me, Harry, and 
 I'll be your well-wisher whether you want 
 me to er not!" 
 
 He hesitated for a moment, when 
 Harry did not reply; then, seeing that 
 
32 THE YOUNG 
 
 Harry was about to turn away, he brought 
 the other hand out of the pocket with a 
 jerk, and said " good-by." 
 
 " Good-by!" returned Harry, also walk- 
 ing off. 
 
 Baily stopped, when a half-dozen yards 
 separated them. 
 
 " I reckon Elsie'll be glad to see you 
 over to our house, as soon as she's able to 
 git 'round ag'in. An' Mis' Baily, too. 
 Tell your maw that we'd like to have her 
 come over some day." 
 
 " Thank you, I'll tell her," Harry re- 
 plied; and then the distance widened 
 again between them. 
 
 Harry did not go on to the office, but 
 he encountered Dr. Sarine on the street 
 shortly afterward. On being reassured 
 that Elsie was practically out of danger, 
 he remounted the pony, tired as both 
 were, and rode slowly back over the long 
 trail home. 
 
 He found much to think about during 
 that ride. He had won the gratitude and 
 the silence of Eichmond Baily. Baily's 
 attitude was disappointing. It cut him 
 cruelly to feel that Baily still regarded 
 him as no better than a common thief. 
 
 Though Harry saw only a few people 
 that afternoon, he found that the story 
 of his ride to town was already spreading. 
 To such as questioned him he told the 
 story briefly; to the others he said noth- 
 ing. 
 
 Elsie Baily was kept at the doctor's 
 residence and under the doctor's care 
 
 D1TC3-B1DEB. 
 
 throughout the remainder of the day and 
 that night, and the ensuing day she rode 
 home with her father and mother in the 
 spring wagon. A few days later Harry 
 saw her again romping in the yard with 
 the shepherd puppy. 
 
 He did not go near the house, but he 
 was told that Baily had not rested until 
 the rattlesnake's burrow was opened and 
 the snake killed. 
 
 In the meantime the dam had been 
 patched up again and was holding fairly 
 well. Harry rode the ditch industriously, 
 striving to satisfy and pacify everybody, 
 but he studiously avoided approaching 
 Baily. He crossed a corner of Baily's 
 millet field nearly every day, but it was 
 the far upper corner. Once when Baily 
 was out in the field on his pony, Harry 
 chased away over the slope, as if in pur- 
 suit of a jack rabbit, for no other purpose 
 than to avoid a meeting. 
 
 Baily was certainly keeping a still 
 tongue about the water-gate. Not a 
 word came from him, except in praise of 
 what Harry had done in saving Elsie's 
 life. These praises were frequently re- 
 peated to Harry; and he was sure if Baily 
 had said anything else, that would have 
 been repeated, too; for the ditch district 
 had its full share of gossips. 
 
 One morning, when more than a week 
 had elapsed, while crossing the upper cor- 
 ner of the millet, Harry saw Baily ride 
 out of the corral and spur toward him. 
 A meeting was so plainly sought that it 
 
THE YOUNG DITCH-BIDE B. 
 
 33 
 
 could not well be avoided. So, when 
 Baily was half way up the millet and veer- 
 ing to intercept him, Harry stopped his 
 pony and waited his approach. 
 
 Baily seemed to grow confused and 
 hesitate as he drew rein, but he finally 
 blurted out: 
 
 " I thought mebbe I ought to tell you 
 that there's goin' to be another ditch 
 meeting at Dutton's school-house Friday 
 night." Having said this, he stopped 
 and combed nervously at his pony's mane, 
 then went on, more slowly: " But there 
 won't be nothin' said about that — that 
 matter, so fur's I'm concerned. And as 
 fer that petition that I was circulatin' 
 ag'in you, I burnt it the night we got 
 back from Golden City." 
 
 "You're very kind!" Harry replied, 
 unconsciously stiffening in the deep sad- 
 dle. " I suppose I'm not wanted at the 
 meeting or I'd have been invited. Well, 
 I shouldn't have gone anyway!" 
 
 " No, I s'pose not," Baily slowly as- 
 sented. " I thought I ought to tell you 
 about it, though; and I just wanted to 
 say to you that I burnt that petition and 
 never expect to put my hand to another." 
 
 He stopped pulling at the tangled 
 mane and lifted the reins. He evidently 
 desired to say more and he as evidently 
 did not know how to say it. 
 
 "Well, good-by! We want to be 
 friends, you know. Elsie was speakin' 
 of you yisterday. She's real chipper 
 now." 
 
 " I'm glad to know she's doing well," 
 Harry replied, with softening voice. 
 " Tell her so, please. Good-by." 
 
 Then Baily turned back into the millet 
 and Harry -rode on up the ditch. 
 
 " Why can't he be a man and come 
 right out and say he told lies on me?" 
 Harry grumbled, looking back at Baily, 
 who had dismounted and was examining 
 the ripening millet heads. " That would 
 be the right way to do, it seems to me. 
 He keeps still, and lets the people go right 
 on thinking I opened the water-gate, 
 when he must know that I didn't." 
 
 The next day Baily drove Mrs. Baily 
 and Elsie over to see Harry's mother; 
 and Harry, coming in, was surprised to 
 see the two women sewing an4 discussing 
 carpet rags in timid friendship, while 
 Elsie, who had quite recovered, amused 
 herself on the floor with some home-made 
 paper dolls. 
 
 Harry played with Elsie and talked 
 with Mrs. Baily. The snake bite was dis- 
 cussed, with the incidents surrounding it; 
 but nothing was said of the opened water- 
 gate or of the stories Baily had circulated 
 concerning it. Nor was this subject 
 broached by either of the women in their 
 talks together. 
 
 After the ditch meeting Harry called 
 on Bigelow, and learned that Baily did 
 not attend the meeting and that little of 
 interest was done. Baily's absence had 
 evoked some questioning, and the general 
 opinion that he had stayed away because 
 
34 
 
 THE YOUNG D1TCH-BIDEB. 
 
 he did not wish to say anything further 
 about the petition for Harry's removal. 
 The fact that, although he seemed to 
 have dropped his antagonism to the ditch- 
 rider, he had not retracted or even modi- 
 fied his statements about the opening of 
 the water-gate, had not gone unnoticed. 
 
 " I reckon his pride won't let him go 
 back on what he so positively asserted! 
 Either that, or he still thinks you guilty. 
 Which it is depends on whether or not 
 he has been honest in the thing from the 
 start." 
 
 Bigelow said this thoughtfully, as 
 Harry got ready to go. 
 
 " But how could he have been honest 
 in it?" Harry burst out. "He certainly 
 knows he didn't see me open the gate!" 
 
 Bigelow did not reply to a point so 
 well taken, and Harry rode away filled 
 with serious thought. 
 
 In the week following, as he rode to 
 and fro, he was made to feel that the 
 opinions of his enemies had softened 
 toward him. But the fact that Baily 
 still made no retraction rested on him 
 like a cloud. More than once he was on 
 the point of riding over to Baily's to 
 question him about it, but each time his 
 courage failed. 
 
 The wheat and millet were harvested 
 and stacked, when the water in the 
 ditches began again to fail, and Harry 
 rode once more to the river and ex- 
 amined the dams and head-gates. He 
 saw that if the dam could be pushed far- 
 
 ther across and the breaks made secure 
 by a sod wall backed with strong timbers, 
 enough water might still be obtained. 
 The feed sorghum was in a fair state to 
 withstand a siege of drouth. The alfalfa 
 had yielded two cuttings of good hay, 
 and the third cutting was pushing 
 rapidly and hopefully along. 
 
 Harry believed more money ought to 
 be spent on the wing dam, and he rode 
 back home, determined to wire the man- 
 ager to that effect. But when he got 
 there, he found a letter from the man- 
 ager, which had been brought out by the 
 mail-carrier. It read: 
 
 " Repair the breaks in the dam and do what- 
 ever else you see is needed. Try not to spend 
 more than two hundred dollars. If we can 
 work through the summer economically it will 
 help us with the owners of the ditch bonds." 
 
 That afternoon Harry made arrange- 
 ments with some of the farmers to com- 
 mence hauling out the needed timbers 
 from Golden City, and he got other farm- 
 ers to put their teams to the big ditcher 
 for the purpose of cleaning the main ditch 
 at certain points and of widening the 
 laterals where observation had shown this 
 to be desirable. 
 
 He personally supervised the repairing 
 of the dam, throwing himself into the 
 work with a will. He knew that much 
 was being expected of him and that he 
 was assuming responsibilities undreamed 
 of when he took the humble position of 
 ditch-rider. 
 
THE YOUNG BITGH-B1DEB. 
 
 35 
 
 The weather had again grown ex- 
 tremely hot, though no dessicating south 
 wind was blowing. The wind came from 
 the southwest and the west, with a ten- 
 dency to veer about and subside into 
 calms. 
 
 Harry paid no heed to it, though early 
 in the forenoon a blue-black line on the 
 western sky drew the attention of the 
 workers. Some of them thought it indi- 
 cated a storm in Colorado, though a few 
 were of the opinion that a mirage was 
 showing the distant Eockies. But it 
 was soon after seen to be a storm, 
 which grew until it covered the 
 
 He became panic-stricken.— See page 17. 
 
36 
 
 THE YOUNG D1TCH-BIDEB. 
 
 western sky, and then swept off to the 
 southwest. 
 
 The farmers went home at noon for 
 their meals and to look after their stock, 
 and when they were gone Harry sat down 
 on the shore end of the wing dam to eat 
 the dinner he had brought in a tin 
 bucket. Ponca, at the end of a long 
 picket rope, nibbled the short grass far- 
 ther up the slope. 
 
 When he had finished his dinner, 
 Harry went to the other end of the dam 
 and inspected some timber which had 
 been carried out there by the men for im- 
 mediate use. As he did so he heard a 
 faint roar. It sounded but little louder 
 than the soughing of the wind, but it 
 quickly increased in volume and forced 
 him to take note of it. 
 
 His first thought was that a storm was 
 coming, but when he leaped to the 
 top of the unfinished dam and looked off 
 up the river he could see nothing. The 
 stream made a bend a short distance 
 above and concealed itself behind a ridgy 
 shoulder, but no cloud had hoisted itself 
 in the sky and there was no indication of 
 a storm. Even the wind, which had 
 ranted furiously an hour before, had 
 ceased to blow. 
 
 Harry stood quite still on the point of 
 the wing dam, straining his eyes and ears. 
 The sound grew louder and louder. 
 
 " It's a flood!" he exclaimed, thrilling 
 a little at the thought, though not with 
 personal fear. " There's been a cloud- 
 
 burst up the river. Well, we'll have 
 plenty of water! I wonder if the dam will 
 hold!" 
 
 He looked at it. A heavy timber was 
 half in place on its outer edge, and he saw 
 that if this timber could be slipped two 
 or three feet the dam would be much 
 strengthened. 
 
 Under the impulse of the moment he 
 leaped down on thfc wet sand, and, exert- 
 ing all his strength, sought to slip the tim- 
 ber into position. The roar was increas- 
 ing. The timber moved, and he was 
 about to heave on it again, when the 
 thunderous noise that struck his ears 
 caused him to look round. 
 
 The flood had turned the bend, flash- 
 ing out from behind the sandy shoulder, 
 and was coming on with startling speed. 
 It filled the channel from bank to bank 
 and slopped over into the grass and wil- 
 lows. Its top was a frothing mass that 
 resembled dirty torn wool. 
 
 Harry understood his peril at a glance. 
 He looked at the shore and knew he 
 would have a lively race if he succeeded 
 in reaching it before the flood caught 
 him. But he was not frightened. He 
 did not have time to be. And he recol- 
 lected, afterward, that he made a men- 
 tal estimate of how far out into the val- 
 ley the flood would extend, and decided 
 that it would not reach the picketed 
 pony. 
 
 Then he sprang down; but the leap 
 was a hurried and awkward one and dis- 
 
TEE YOUNG DITCE-BIDEB. 
 
 37 
 
 lodged a piece of timber lying loosely on 
 ■top of the dam. He slipped and fell to 
 the wet sand; and, before he could get up, 
 the timber rolled down on him, catching 
 his right leg and pinning it fast. 
 
 The limb was not broken and but very 
 little bruised and the pain was not great. 
 He tried to draw it out, that he might get 
 up, and found he could not. The sand 
 yielded beneath the weight of the timber 
 and the leg was pressed down into it and 
 held there as if in a vise. 
 
 As soon as he discovered he could not 
 draw out the leg, he twisted about and 
 got hold of an end of the timber, and 
 sought to remove it; but he might as well 
 have tugged at a house. 
 
 At this he became panic-stricken. The 
 flood was fairly on him. Its advance 
 sounded like the dash of a small Niagara 
 or the heavy roar of surf. He beheld its 
 advance as the trapped rat looks at the 
 approach of an enemy, and fairly cried 
 out in his anguish, for there seemed no 
 escape. 
 
 His cry was swallowed up by the lash 
 of the waters as the flood struck him, and 
 he gave himself up for lost. But, instead' 
 of being annihilated, he felt himself 
 caught up in a way he had not antici- 
 pated, and whirled down stream, blinded 
 and choking in the grasp of the chilling 
 waters. The timber had been lifted by 
 the flood as if it were but a feather's 
 weight. He thought he heard an out- 
 cry. Then his head struck something 
 
 and his choking sensations were succeeded 
 by unconsciousness. 
 
 When he came back to life he was ly- 
 ing on the grass and looking up into the 
 anxious face of Eichmond Baily. 
 
 " So you're coming round all right, 
 eh?" Mr. Baily chirped. " I was mightily 
 afraid you wouldn't, the way you was 
 acting. But yoii're worth a dozen dead 
 boys. Biggest flood that ever went down 
 this river, I reckon!" 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MYSTERY SOLVED. 
 
 'URIOSITY had drawn 
 Richmond Baily to 
 the river that day. 
 He wanted to observe 
 the work of the 
 ditcher and the pro- 
 gress made on the 
 dam. Mounted on 
 his riding pony, he 
 had gained the rim of the tableland, that 
 here formed the northern wall of the val- 
 ley, a short time before he heard the roar 
 of the flood and beheld its resistless de- 
 scent. 
 
 From his elevated position he had 
 looked down into the almost dry bed of 
 the stream in advance of the flood and 
 witnessed the frantic struggles of the 
 young ditch-rider to escape from the pin- 
 
38 THE YOUNG 
 
 ning weight of the timber. Then he had 
 struck spurs against the flanks of the 
 pony and sent it leaping down the in- 
 cline. 
 
 The head of the flood had passed and 
 the waters were subsiding when he 
 reached the river. Seeing nothing of the 
 hapless youth, Baily feared he had been 
 drowned and buried in the sand where he 
 had fallen; but, as he galloped along the 
 bank, he caught sight of the boyish form 
 in a clump of willows, whither the flood 
 had thrown it. 
 
 He was out of the saddle with a haste 
 that was phenomenal for him; and a few 
 minutes later he had Harry Purcell in his 
 arms and was half carrying and half drag- 
 ging him to the high and dry ground 
 above, where he began vigorous and suc- 
 cessful efforts to restore him to conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 Baily continued to talk and to work. 
 
 " How did that timber happen to ketch 
 ye? The dam and everything's gone, I 
 guess! But you're all right, though 
 you've got an ugly lump on your head." 
 
 He rubbed the chilled shoulders with a 
 hand that felt so like a nutmeg grater 
 that Harry winced and tried to sit up; 
 whereat Mr. Baily's smile became more 
 pronounced and his comments more pleas- 
 antly garrulous. 
 
 " You needn't worry yourself to talk, 
 yit, if you don't feel like it. I reckon I 
 seen about the whole thing. And I'm 
 powerful glad I happened along jist then, 
 
 B1TCB-BWEB. 
 
 too, for you wasn't in no good condition, 
 I can tell you, layin' there in the willers, 
 about as cold as a chunk of ice!" 
 
 Harry pulled himself to a sitting pos- 
 ture, and with Baily's help tried to 
 struggle to his feet. But he was not 
 equal to it. His bruised head thumped 
 painfully and his ideas were in a muddled 
 condition. 
 
 Galloping hoofs on the slope drew his 
 attention and he saw some men from the 
 ditcher riding that way. He was lying 
 on the ground, with Baily's coat for a 
 pillow, when they rode up. The sun was 
 blazing hot there on the hillside and he 
 was beginning to feel warmer, though he 
 was still as wet as the proverbial drowned 
 rat. 
 
 Baily hastily acquainted the men with 
 what had happened; and when they had 
 expressed their gratification at Harry's 
 escape and asked a few questions, they 
 galloped on to the river to survey the 
 work of the flood. 
 
 Two-thirds of the wing dam had been 
 torn out; but the river was running bank 
 full, and the water was going in a torrent 
 ^through the head - gate into the main 
 canal. With the river at that stage no 
 dam was needed to divert enough water 
 to fill the Golconda canal. 
 
 Harry was on his feet when the horse- 
 men returned with their report; and, 
 when Ponca was brought up for him and 
 he was helped into the saddle, he found 
 that, in spite of his injured head, he was 
 
THE YOUNG B1TCH-BIDEB. 
 
 39 
 
 strong enough to ride home; which he did, 
 accompanied by Mr. Baily. On that 
 home ride the talk was chiefly of the 
 flood., of the ditches and the crops, and 
 of the rebuilding of the dam as soon as 
 the water subsided. 
 
 Baily stopped his pony at the point 
 where they were to separate. 
 
 " Well, I'm glad I was able to help you 
 to-day. It kinder pays back fer what you 
 done fer Elsie, you see! Tell your maw 
 to come over to see Mis' Baily. She's ex- 
 pectin' her." 
 
 It was plain that Baily de- 
 sired to win and retain Harry's 
 good-will; yet he carefully 
 avoided any expression of a 
 willingness to retract his 
 charges against Harry's hon- 
 esty, though he must have 
 known that that would be the 
 surest way to the boy's heart. 
 Why was he so persistently 
 silent on that point? 
 
 That was what Harry asked 
 himself, as, after they had separated, he 
 was riding slowly home. Why did Baily 
 avoid that? 
 
 The ditches continued to run to their 
 full capacity for a number of days. 
 There had been heavy storms in the 
 mountains, in addition to the cloud- 
 burst on the plains, and these, com- 
 bined with the melting snows, gave a 
 good flow. The fact that there was prac- 
 tically no dam in the stream amounted to 
 
 nothing so long as there was a riverful of 
 water. 
 
 The effect on the general atmosphere 
 of the irrigation district was cheering and 
 wholesome. The farmers were able to 
 
 He caught sight of the boyish form.— See page 38. 
 
 wet their fields thoroughly, and hope 
 reigned supreme. 
 
 And those fields, touched by the life- 
 giving water, certainly presented a beau- 
 tiful sight. The alfalfa was of emerald 
 greenness. The purplish blue blossoms 
 
40 THE YOVNG 
 
 seemed to mirror back a bluer sky and 
 loaded the Kansas zephyrs with a per- 
 fume like that of Araby the Blest. 
 
 The young ditch-rider, as he continued 
 his daily rounds, seemed suddenly to have 
 been dropped down among another order 
 of beings. The scowls were absent, the 
 unkind words gone. No one seemed to 
 remember that he had ever been charged 
 with an improper act. 
 
 While affairs were in this generally 
 prosperous condition the manager made 
 his appearance, coming out from Topeka, 
 where he had his office and his home. He 
 knew the farmers were in good spirits, 
 now, for Harry had told him so by letter; 
 and he no doubt preferred to come 
 among them at such a time. 
 
 He was a shrewd, far-seeing man, of a 
 speculative turn and energetic dispo- 
 sition. The Golconda canal had been 
 constructed and its business was being 
 run on money furnished by Eastern peo- 
 ple, who knew next to nothing about irri- 
 gation, and were only desirous that their 
 investments should yield the largest possi- 
 ble revenue. Between their demands for 
 low expenditures and big incomes, and 
 the demands of the farmers for just the 
 reverse, he had found his pathway not 
 altogether strewn with roses. 
 
 Of course he met and talked with Mr. 
 Baily. Harry questioned him about this 
 meeting in much perturbation of spirit. 
 The manager looked at Harry hesitat- 
 ingly. 
 
 B1TCH-BIBEB. 
 
 " When I asked him why he had cir- 
 culated the report that you opened the 
 water-gate, he said it was because it was 
 true; but, when I questioned him further, 
 and wanted to know more about it, he 
 refused to answer, insisting that he had 
 dropped the subject." 
 
 Except that it revived Harry's bitter 
 feeling against Mr. Baily the visit of the 
 manager was productive of good. He 
 granted concessions to those whose crops 
 had not received water enough and made 
 certain agreements whose fulfillment 
 promised much. In addition, he gave 
 Harry authority to rebuild the dam in a 
 substantial manner. 
 
 When Harry began this work on the 
 dam, the season was well advanced, and 
 the crops, except in a few instances, had 
 made a satisfactory yield. There could 
 be no denying that the outcome would 
 have been much better if the ditches and 
 dam had been kept in good condition 
 throughout the season, for the soil is 
 phenomenally rich; but the failure that 
 had seemed inevitable at one time had 
 been mercifully averted. 
 
 Harry might have been quite happy 
 now, but for two things: Baily had not 
 withdrawn his damaging statements, and 
 a field of youDg alfalfa was not doing well , 
 because of a lack of water. Often Harry 
 had stinted his mother's fields to let 
 other patrons have water, but there was 
 very little now for any one, and the need 
 of the alfalfa bore on his mind. 
 
THE YOUNG DITCH-RIDER. 
 
 41 
 
 One night he awoke with a terrible 
 shock. He was standing in the edge of 
 the lateral that ran to his mother's fields, 
 spade in hand, clothed in his rough irri- 
 gating suit — rubber boots and all — and 
 the water-gate was wide open! He shiv- 
 ered in bewilderment, as he stared about 
 and down at his attire. 
 
 Then the truth slowly dawned upon 
 him. He knew that he had just roused 
 from somnambulistic sleep, and that his 
 intense anxiety for the safety of the 
 young alfalfa had caused him to get out 
 of his bed and come out there to turn 
 water in on it. And that was what he 
 had done before. It was indeed he who 
 had opened the water-gate! 
 
 He shrank within himself and looked 
 dumbly around. What if he should be 
 seen there, with those clothes on and that 
 spade in his hand? Then, like a blow, 
 the thought struck him that he had been 
 so seen by Mr. Baily, which was the rea- 
 son Baily had refused to retract his 
 charges. Baily could not retract the 
 truth! He had seen the young ditch- 
 rider opening the water-gate at the dead 
 hour of midnight; and though, in his de- 
 sire to repay a great service, he might for- 
 ever close his lips on the subject, regard 
 for his own word would not permit him to 
 say he had not witnessed the act. 
 
 Harry Purcell understood it all now. 
 
 He was thankful that the night was 
 dark. He recalled how he had lain out 
 on the ditch embankment and had seen 
 
 Mr. Baily slip into and lie down in the 
 alfalfa. From that point in the alfalfa, 
 on some other night, Baily had beheld 
 the work he had denounced. 
 
 A feeling that Baily was again in the 
 alfalfa so oppressed Harry that he could 
 not banish it until he had waded through 
 the grass to the point where he had seen 
 him hide. 
 
 Satisfied that no eye was on him, Harry 
 went back to the lateral, closed the gate 
 and took the damming-board out of the 
 canal. Then he walked thoughtfully 
 home, divested himself of his irrigating 
 suit and crawled into bed. But not to 
 sleep. 
 
 In the morning he acquainted his 
 mother with his discovery. She was as 
 much surprised as he had been, for she 
 had not known of his somnambulistic 
 habit. They could only infer that his 
 overwork and his desire to save the crops 
 had temporarily made him a sleep- 
 walker. 
 
 Both were so distressed that they 
 could talk of nothing else. 
 
 " I've been thinking, Harry, that 
 maybe you'd better go over to Mr. Baily's 
 and tell him just how it was and how 
 sorry you feel about it! If you'll let me, 
 I'll go with you in the spring wagon and 
 make Mis' Baily the visit I've been prom- 
 isin' so long." 
 
 They were at the breakfast table; and 
 as she timidly made the suggestion, Mrs. 
 Purcell put a spoon in her empty cup 
 
42 
 
 and stirred it under the impression that 
 she was sugaring her coffee. 
 
 " They'll be glad to know just how it 
 was. And I feel sure, Harry, that God 
 has heard our prayers and that you will 
 soon come out from under this terrible 
 cloud that has been hanging over you for 
 so long. ' He is faithful that prom- 
 ised.' " 
 
 But Harry was a little hesitant about 
 going, and doubtfully shook his head. 
 
 " There's just this danger," — and he 
 seemed to measure his words as if he had 
 long considered them — " Mr. Baily may 
 think that this is only a yarn of mine. 
 I'm afraid it's going to be hard to make 
 him believe that when I opened the gate 
 I didn't know what I was doing! It has 
 a queer sound, you see!" 
 
 Mrs. Purcell's face showed her dis- 
 tress. 
 
 " Surely, Harry, he won't think that! 
 He's done everything to make you forget 
 that he ever said anything against you." 
 
 " Everything but say he thought me 
 innocent. He may still be in that same 
 mood!" 
 
 He drummed with his fork for a few 
 moments. 
 
 " I'd like to do what you say, mother; 
 but I haven't the courage, and that's the 
 fact. If I was sure I could make Baily 
 believe me, it would be different. Give 
 me time to think it over!" 
 
 He got up from the table and went out 
 to feed the stock. 
 
 THE YOUNG B1TCH-B1BEB. 
 
 The discovery of the night pursued 
 
 him with a haunting pertinacity through- 
 out the day. Work was still being done 
 on the ditch; and, when he visited the 
 dam, he met a number of the ditch 
 patrons. But he said nothing to them of 
 the sxibject uppermost in his mind, 
 though he almost fancied they could read 
 his trouble in his face. 
 
 " Going to Dutton's?" one of them 
 asked, as he turned homeward. 
 
 " Why, I don't know. What's going 
 on?" 
 
 His thoughts were of a ditch meeting. 
 
 " Going to be a literary there to-night. 
 It's strange you didn't hear of it, for it 
 was given out at the spelling match." 
 
 " I wasn't at the spelling match. Per- 
 haps I'll go; I don't know yet. Thank 
 you for telling me about it." 
 
 His heart was vexed with a tumult of 
 contending desires and emotions, as he 
 rode home; but out of the chaos came a 
 calming resolution. 
 
 That night Harry Purcell and his 
 mother attended the " literary " held in 
 Dutton's school-house. Nearly every one 
 living within a radius of a half dozen 
 miles was present. The house was filled. 
 
 Harry sat quietly with his mother and 
 took little part in the joking and conver- 
 sation that preceded the meeting. Nor 
 did he have anything to do with the ex- 
 ercises, which consisted of the usual reci- 
 tations, declamations and debate. 
 
 But when the meeting was about to 
 
TEE YOUNG DITCH-RIDER. 
 
 43 
 
 adjourn he stood up in his place and 
 asked of the president of the society the 
 privilege of saying a few words. 
 
 His face was pallid under its tan, and 
 his voice was tremulous in spite of his 
 efforts at self-control. As he glanced 
 over the faces about him his eyes met 
 those of Eichmond Baily. The sight had 
 a strengthening effect. His form grew 
 straighter, his tones steadier, and his 
 hammering heart slowed down. 
 
 " You will be surprised, I know, at 
 what I'm about to tell," he began, 
 speaking slowly, as if feeling his way. 
 " Yesterday I wouldn't have believed it 
 myself. Last summer, as you will re- 
 member, a certain gentleman, who, I am 
 happy to say, is now my friend, charged 
 that 1 opened the water-gate in my 
 mother's lateral." 
 
 There was a rustling stir in the throng 
 and a buzzing of whispered comment. 
 Harry glanced about and observed that 
 every eye was glued on him; but he did 
 not falter. 
 
 " I said, at the time, that the story was 
 not true, and I believed what I said. But 
 I am ready to confess that I did open the 
 water-gate, and I want to explain to you 
 how I came to do it." 
 
 Then, in a voice that constantly grew 
 steadier and fuller, he told his story — 
 told it in a way to carry conviction to 
 every person there; for the feeling of in- 
 nocence and honesty that sustained him 
 so shone out through his eyes and spoke 
 
 in his voice and manner that the veriest 
 doubter could not remain unconvinced. 
 
 At its close, he found his mother weep- 
 ing softly and saw Mr. Baily crowding 
 toward him between the benches. 
 
 " I want you to forgive me, Harry!" 
 Baily exclaimed, catching the young 
 ditch-rider's hand and fervently squeez- 
 ing it. " I see that you've told the 
 truth; though how could any one think 
 you opened the gate in that way? Not 
 me, I'm sure." 
 
 "You saw me?" Harry asked, certain 
 of the reply. 
 
 The buzzing talk almost drowned 
 Baily's answer, for people were getting 
 up all over the house and pushing across 
 to take the hand of the young ditch-rider, 
 whom they now saw they had wronged. 
 
 " Yes, I saw you. I hid out in the 
 alfalfa. You see that was why I couldn't 
 take back what I'd said. But it's all 
 right, now! And there won't be anybody 
 gladder than Mis' Baily and Elsie; or me, 
 either!" 
 
 He wrung the hand again, and then 
 drew back to make way for another farmer 
 who had signed the petition asking for 
 Harry's removal. 
 
 There was a stream of men and 
 women, after that. The "literary" 
 seemed to have adjourned of its own ac- 
 cord; and so many women gathered about 
 Mrs. Purcell, with words of kindness and 
 sympathy, that she broke down and cried 
 like a child. 
 
44 THE YOUNG 
 
 Whether it was because his anxieties 
 were less afterward, or whether that mid- 
 night awakening on the edge of the canal 
 broke Harry Purcell of the somnambu- 
 listic habit, would be difficult to deter- 
 mine; but certain it is that from that time 
 the water-gate remained undisturbed. 
 
 The repaired dam did its work well, 
 and the next season saw a marked im- 
 
 BITCH-BIDEB. 
 
 provement in the management of the 
 ditch, so that the farmers had not so 
 much room for complaint. 
 
 Harry rode the ditch that year and for 
 several succeeding years, in a way to give 
 perfect satisfaction. Time has gone on, 
 but the relations existing between the 
 Purcells and the Bailys have been of the 
 pleasantest since that troubled summer. 
 
 THE END. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE HOME ON THE PLAINS. 
 
 (( '"THERE, that's beginning to look 
 -*- something like!" exclaimed Clifford 
 King, straightening up, with hammer in 
 one hand and nails in the other, and sur- 
 veying the "shack" he was building. 
 
 "Like what?" questioned his sister, 
 with a teasing smile. " Not a house?" 
 
 " Yes, a house. It isn't a mansion, but 
 it will be comfortable, and we'll have the 
 pleasure of knowing that we built it our- 
 selves. You held boards sometimes, you 
 know, while I sawed them and when I 
 pounded nails." 
 
 "Your own nails, you mean?" 
 
 " And you've done all the cooking," 
 continued Clifford, who did not like to be 
 reminded of the pounded fingers any more 
 than he liked the looks of the blackened 
 finger nails. 
 
 " I guess it will do," said Miss Katie, 
 
 as she looked the shack over with critical 
 eyes. " This door seems a bit wobbly 
 and the north gable is a little out of 
 plumb, but — for a boy who isn't a car- 
 penter, and a young woman who isn't 
 much of anything — it will do. Now, 
 back in Indiana!" 
 
 " Yes, there are degrees of compari- 
 son," Clifford admitted. " If you should 
 set this shanty up by the side of Judge 
 Tilton's house back in Indiana — well, I 
 don't suppose he'd be willing to use it for 
 a woodshed! But out here, where few of 
 the houses are any better and the country 
 is brand splinter new, it isn't such a bad 
 house after all. There's one thing sure 
 — the tarred paper won't let it leak!" 
 
 Just beyond the half-completed house 
 of two small rooms, stood a big wall tent, 
 from which Miss Katie had emerged, and 
 whence now issued an appetizing odor. 
 
 " My, that cooking smells good!" Clif- 
 ford declared. " I shall soon have to ask 
 
46 
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE MIRAGE. 
 
 you to do your cooking only when the 
 wind sets in the opposite direction. This 
 work is giving me such an appetite I'm 
 hungry all the time." 
 
 Sister and brother markedly resembled 
 each other in looks and character. Both 
 had honest blue eyes, fair complexions 
 and brown hair; both were approachable, 
 sympathetic and filled with the eager en- 
 thusiasm characteristic of Americans. 
 Katie had passed her twenty-first birth- 
 day; Clifford was only sixteen. She 
 called him a boy; and he was in many 
 ways as boyish as a boy of ten, though at 
 other times he was as manly and sturdy 
 as a man. 
 
 Clifford glanced toward the tent and 
 then across the stretch of prairie beyond 
 it, a half mile or so, to a valley-like de- 
 pression, where two ponies were grazing 
 at the ends of long lariats secured by iron 
 picket pins driven into the ground. 
 
 " I wish you'd just look at those ponies, 
 Katie," he said. " Did you ever see any- 
 thing so odd? What do they make you 
 think of?" 
 
 "Hobgoblins!" said Katie. "Don't 
 they look queer! And see how smoky the 
 air is out there. It resembles real smoke, 
 too!" with a startled inflection. " You 
 don't suppose the prairie can be on fire, 
 do you, Chf?" 
 
 Clifford King's face showed a trace of 
 uneasiness. " I don't know," he ad- 
 mitted. " I hadn't thought of that. I'll 
 rur up to the roof and take a look." 
 
 It was the work of only a minute to 
 mount the ladder which rested against 
 the shack, but he could see very little 
 more from the roof than he could from 
 the ground. The atmosphere had a blu- 
 ish, hazy appearance, which rendered it 
 impossible to make out objects at any 
 considerable distance. A shanty, which 
 had been plainly discernible in the morn- 
 ing about two miles to the westward, 
 was now wholly blotted from sight. Close 
 to the earth there appeared to be a smoky 
 heat shimmer, though the day was not 
 hot. 
 
 " I can't see any fire," he announced, 
 after an anxious survey. 
 
 Turning toward the ponies, he observed 
 that they seemed much taller. Their legs 
 had been lengthened as if by the addition 
 of stilts; their bodies had also been drawn 
 upwards. They grew taller and taller as 
 he looked, and in a little while the haze 
 so enveloped them that he might have 
 thought them bushes instead of ponies if 
 he had not known better. When they 
 moved, the effect was somewhat like that 
 of " trees walking." 
 
 " I'll tell you what causes that," said 
 Katie, who was also watching the strange 
 transformation. 
 
 "Then I wish you would," Clifford 
 called from the roof. 
 
 " It's the miragy condition of the air. 
 Mirages are common here, you know." 
 
 Clifford King seldom had cause to 
 doubt the accuracy of his sister's conclu- 
 
IN THE LAND OF THE MIRAGE. 
 
 47 
 
 sions. Still, he could not help remark- brother had set up a tent and were now 
 ing: erecting a house. Clifford, being under 
 
 " Well, I've heard of mirages and seen age, could not " take up " government 
 them, but I never 
 knew they cut up 
 such capers as 
 that." 
 
 Though Katie 
 and Clifford King 
 had been in West- 
 ern Kansas for 
 some time, they 
 were still to a great 
 extent unfamiliar 
 with the phenom- 
 ena of the plains, 
 of which probably 
 nothing is more in- 
 teresting than mir- 
 ages. Six months 
 before, Katie and 
 Clifford had been 
 residents of Indi- 
 ana, from which 
 State they had 
 come, to join the 
 great land rush, 
 that reached its 
 height in 1885-6. 
 
 After spending 
 some time in Gar- 
 den City, Katie had 
 filed on a quarter- 
 section of government land near the een- land, but he entered into his sister's plans 
 ter of one of the adjacent unorganized with an enthusiasm that augured their 
 counties, On this land she and her success. 
 
 A horseman was swimming into view through the haze. — See page 48. 
 
48 
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE MIRAGE. 
 
 In addition, Clifford had secured the 
 position of " locator " for the Garden City 
 land firm of Rush & File, and had already 
 done some work and received his money. 
 More than one half of the county still 
 consisted of government land, though it 
 was now being settled at a rapid rate. 
 Rush & File were appointing " locators " 
 in every section of the Garden City laud 
 district, and, being impressed with Clif- 
 ford's alertness and intelligence, had 
 offered him the place of " locator " for 
 the untaken land in his vicinity. Intend- 
 ing settlers were to be sent to him, and 
 he was to look the country over with 
 them and assist them in making a selec- 
 tion, or "location." For every person 
 successfully " located " he was to receive 
 five dollars out of the money charged 
 the settler by Rush & File for their 
 services. 
 
 " There's somebody coming," Katie 
 announced, as Clifford descended from 
 the roof. " Perhaps he's got another five 
 dollars for you, Clif!" 
 
 Clifford hurried to her side, and, shad- 
 ing his eyes with his hand, stared off in 
 the direction she pointed. A horseman 
 was swimming into view through the 
 shimmering haze. Both horse and rider 
 were drawn to spectacular heights, and 
 seemed to bend and waver like paper 
 figures blown on by a wind. It was im- 
 possible to make out the rider's appear- 
 ance until he was quite near. 
 
 "It's Mr. Glover," said Clifford, in a 
 
 tone of disappointment. " No five dol- 
 lars there, for I've already located him. 
 He is the man I located last Wednesday, 
 on that fiat quarter of section twenty, 
 east of here." 
 
 There was a look of anger on the 
 bearded face of David Glover, as he rode 
 up to the unfinished house. He was a 
 man of middle age, short and sturdy, with 
 dark eyes and hair. He nodded stiffly to 
 Katie, then turned to Clif. 
 
 " Mighty poor way you've started in 
 here, young man, do you know it? If 
 you expect to stay in this country, you 
 can't afford to begin by deceiving and 
 cheating men who are to be your neigh- 
 bors." 
 
 Clifford's face reddened in amazement. 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know what you 
 mean, Mr. Glover!" he declared. 
 
 " Oh, you don't!" said Glover, with a 
 sneer. " Well, you've put me just six 
 miles south of where I thought you was 
 putting me, and now I've made my filing 
 at the land office and am stuck, for you 
 know that after the filing is made it's too 
 late to change. I've got the southeast 
 quarter of section twenty, just as you 
 said, but I thought you was putting me 
 in the twenty in the township north." 
 
 " I told you township eighteen," Clif- 
 ford stoutly insisted. 
 
 " But I thought it was six miles fur- 
 ther north," said Glover, angrily. " I 
 know you said eighteen, but you took me 
 to the township north. What makes me 
 
IN THE LAND OF THE MIBAGE. 
 
 sure, is that there is a creek with a fringe 
 of scrubby timber along it, not a great 
 distance away. I asked you if I couldn't 
 get wood from that creek, and you said 
 you thought I could as long as the land 
 remained untaken." 
 
 " Yes, I said that, and 1 say so yet," 
 Clifford answered. 
 
 " But the creek is seven or eight miles 
 from the land I'm located on," Glover 
 declared. " How do you explain that? 
 If I had got the land which you showed 
 me, it wouldn't have been more than a 
 mile or so away." 
 
 " I didn't tell you the creek was so near 
 as that, Mr. Glover," Clifford urged. " I 
 said nothing about the distance. I don't 
 know just how far the creek is, for the 
 plats I have don't show its location, and I 
 haven't had time yet to visit it; but I'm 
 very positive I never said a word to make 
 you think that it was no more than a mile 
 or so away." 
 
 Katie was pale and much distressed. 
 She felt that it was possible Clifford had 
 blundered in locating Mr. Glover, and had 
 really shown him one quarter-section and 
 located him on another. The entire 
 country was bewilderingly alike in its 
 general characteristics. There were no 
 natural landmarks, and as yet only a 
 shanty here and there at wide intervals. 
 
 " Perhaps you had better go with Mr. 
 Glover and make sure, Clifford," she 
 urged. " I hope you can show him that 
 he is wrong. He may have gone the long- 
 
 49 
 It's so easy to get 
 
 est way to the creek, 
 turned around here." 
 
 " Nothing of the kind — begging your 
 pardon, Miss!" said Glover. " I don't 
 get lost easy. I've just come from the 
 creek and know about how far it is. No, 
 Miss; your brother took me for a green- 
 horn, that's all. He saw I wanted that 
 other piece of land, which I've since 
 found out was already taken, and he was 
 afraid if he couldn't make me think I 
 was getting it, I'd go away and he'd lose 
 a fee. So he fooled me, just for the 
 money!" 
 
 Clifford grew even paler than his sis- 
 ter. 
 
 " I wouldn't do such a thing as that, 
 Mr. Glover, not for twenty fees!" he as- 
 serted. " You are simply mistaken. I'm 
 willing to pay back the money I got for 
 the work, and I think the firm will give 
 you back the whole of it, if you're dissat- 
 isfied." 
 
 He drew his purse from his pocket and 
 took five dollars from it. 
 
 " Five hundred wouldn't make it 
 square!" Glover fiercely declared. "I've 
 lost my homestead right by filing on a 
 quarter I didn't want, and now I've got 
 to keep it. You thought because the land 
 is so much alike I wouldn't know the dif- 
 ference; that's all. And now that I do 
 know it, you'd like to refund and sneak 
 out of it! Keep your money! I don't 
 want it! You'll lose fifty times that 
 amount by what you've done; see if you 
 
50 
 
 IN TEE LAND OF TEE MIRAGE. 
 
 don't! I shall be your neighbor. I've 
 got to be, now; but I sha'n't be a very 
 pleasant one to you." 
 
 With this threat, David Glover turned 
 his horse and rode away, leaving Clifford 
 and Katie hurt, indignant and perturbed 
 beyond measure. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 LOCATING A QUARTER-SECTION. 
 
 HOETLY after Mr. Glo- 
 ver's departure, Clif- 
 ford King, acting on 
 his sister's advice, 
 took one of the ponies 
 and rode in the direc- 
 tion of the creek, to ascertain its distance 
 from Glover's land. 
 
 Though this was a matter of doubt, 
 Clifford was certain he had not blundered 
 in locating Mr. Glover, notwithstanding 
 the fact that in that vast sea of grass one 
 section of land so resembled another that 
 only an experienced eye could tell them 
 apart in the absence of distinguishing 
 marks. What made him so sure was that 
 he had been guided by mounds, which he 
 had set up after running carefully-meas- 
 ured section lines. 
 
 That he might keep a straight course 
 now, he took out his hand-compass from 
 time to time, set it in position on his palm 
 or the pommel of his saddle, and sighted 
 
 northward by lines of weeds and thistle 
 heads. 
 
 Clifford King's earnest face was so 
 pleasant and honest, so open and frank, 
 that it ought of itself to have convinced 
 David Glover that the youth was incapa- 
 ble of the deception charged against him. 
 
 " Of course he'll do all he can now to 
 injure me in the work of locating," Clif- 
 ford reflected, "and if he's very bitter 
 and aggressive he can hurt me a good 
 deal. But I don't see what I can do." 
 
 As he rode on, the haze cleared away, 
 and blue, lake-like illusions began to ap- 
 pear. They were but another form of the 
 changing mirage. A blue line, resem- 
 bling a narrow thread of water, became 
 visible on his left. It grew wider and 
 wider as he advanced, and extended north- 
 ward until the entire horizon in front of 
 him seemed changed to a sea. from which 
 extended bodies of water like bays and 
 rivers. 
 
 This shrank, as he galloped on, and 
 became a lake, on whose farther shores 
 trees appeared to stand. The trees even 
 showed their reflections in the lake. Yet 
 the lake hardly looked real. As he 
 studied it and recalled the stories he had 
 read of the mirages of the plains, he mar- 
 velled that even travellers half insane by 
 thirst could ever have been fooled by 
 such things. He knew that the seeming 
 bodies of water, which constantly changed 
 in shape and size, were nothing more than 
 the intensely blue sky reflected in a 
 
IN THE LAND OF THE MIBAGE. 
 
 51 
 
 stratum of air lying just above the dry 
 soil, the air acting as a mirror. As for 
 the trees, when he looked at them closely 
 he saw that they were only weeds or 
 thistles, exaggerated out of all proportion 
 by the miragy state of the atmosphere, 
 just a's the ponies had been. 
 
 " That creek is farther than I sup- 
 posed," he thought, as he still rode on. 
 " The twenty that Mr. Glover declares I 
 showed him must be near here. Perhaps 
 that is it over there, where those stakes 
 are set up. The land is taken, he said, 
 and they have been put there to show 
 ownership." 
 
 When he came to the creek, it was not 
 such as he expected to see. It resembled 
 a chain of ponds inclosed by high banks. 
 The trees were nearly all cottonwoods and 
 grew close to the water. Though they 
 were scrubby, their tops projected some 
 distance above the level of the country, 
 and could be seen a long way in clear 
 weather. The bright green of the leaves 
 was in cheering contrast to the monot- 
 onous gray-green of the plains. 
 
 On reaching home after this jaunt, 
 Clifford found there a farmer from Illi- 
 nois, talking to Katie. 
 
 " Been thinkin' I could locate myself," 
 said the man, after he had introduced 
 himself to Clifford as Abner Brown, 
 from the vicinity of Galesburg, "but I 
 find I can't. Been lost twice to-day al- 
 ready. When I saw your place I rode 
 over, and was mighty glad when your sis- 
 
 ter told me you're a locator. Euther 
 youngish for that, though, ain't you? 
 Should think you'd get lost as well as 
 other people, and make mistakes." 
 
 Clifford thought of Mr. Glover's state- 
 ment concerning the southeast quarter of 
 section twenty, but he only said: 
 
 " You see I use a compass, and I've 
 put up guiding mounds to assist me. I 
 shall be glad to try to find some land for 
 you, Mr. Brown, and will change my pony 
 and go with you right away, if you say 
 so." 
 
 " Dinner is ready," said Katie. " Per- 
 haps Mr. Brown would like something to 
 eat before he starts." 
 
 It was an invitation that the tired and 
 hungry farmer was glad to accept. 
 
 " That creek is all of seven miles from 
 Mr. Glover's," Clifford said to his sister, 
 when they were alone a few moments. 
 "It's really farther than I thought." 
 
 " You're still sure you couldn't have 
 shown him the wrong section?" Katie 
 anxiously questioned. 
 
 " Quite sure," he answered. 
 
 " I suppose he will complain of you to 
 the firm?" she said. 
 
 " I don't doubt it. But perhaps he'll 
 see, after awhile, that he is mistaken." 
 
 " It's hard to be thought dishonest 
 when one is innocent," said Katie. " But 
 that's better than to be dishonest when 
 thought innocent. If Mr. Glover is an 
 honest man himself, as he seems to be, 
 he will come to know and understand by 
 
52 
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE MIKAGE. 
 
 and by that you couldn't do such a thing. 
 "We'll just do the best we can, and be as 
 kind to him as if he had never said 
 a harsh word against you. You'll try, 
 won't you? It will all come out right in 
 the end, I am sure." 
 
 "Yes, I'll try," Clif promised, with 
 sober earnestness. " I'll treat him just 
 as well as he'll let me. I'm afraid, 
 though, he is going to make me a lot of 
 trouble!" 
 
 " I rather like the looks of that 
 country off there," said Mr. Brown, when 
 he and Clifford were seated in the spring 
 wagon drawn by the ponies, with Mr. 
 Brown's saddle horse tied behind. " It'll 
 drain better, because it ain't quite so 
 flat." 
 
 " If some of the cattlemen are right, 
 the question of drainage won't cut much 
 of a figure," observed Clifford. " They 
 say we'll find that it doesn't rain enough." 
 
 " It's rained a good 'eal since I've been 
 in the country, anyway," the farmer de- 
 clared. " I reckon the cattlemen haven't 
 any too good will toward us grangers, as 
 they call us, for taking up the land. You 
 don't talk like any agent I've struck yit. 
 Most of 'em brag up the country fer all 
 it's worth, and a little more." 
 
 Clifford looked sober, for he thought of 
 David Glover. 
 
 " Yes, I suppose so," he answered. " I 
 mean to be honest and fair. I think the 
 country is all right, and that time will 
 prove it so." 
 
 After a long drive, Mr. Brown found 
 some land that suited his fancy. 
 
 " What's the number of this, and how 
 do the lines run?" he asked. " I reckon 
 it ain't taken?" 
 
 " That's something I can't tell you 
 right off," Clifford answered. "We'll 
 have to go to the mound I pointed out to 
 you, further back. Then we'll run the 
 lines and measure to this land, and the 
 plat will tell us the rest." 
 
 He took out a new plat of the town- 
 ship, which Bush & File had sent to him 
 the day before. This is how it looked: 
 
 N 
 
 W 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 X 
 
 4^~ 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 X 
 
 — I 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 x 40 
 
 II 
 
 12 
 
 18 
 
 1" 
 
 X 
 
 16 
 
 15 
 
 14 
 
 13 
 
 19 
 
 20 
 
 21 
 
 22 
 
 23 
 
 24 
 
 30 
 
 29 
 
 2 
 
 ft 
 
 27 
 
 26 
 
 25 
 
 31 
 
 X 
 
 2 
 
 33 
 
 34 
 
 35 
 
 36 
 
 The taken quarter-sections are here 
 indicated by crosses, but in Clifford's plat 
 they were inclosed by lines of red ink. 
 
 " This shows a block of land six miles 
 square," Clifford explained, " or thirty- 
 six sections, numbered as you see, each 
 divided into four quarter-sections of one 
 
IN TEE LAND OF TEE MIBAGE. 
 
 Clifford took out a new plat of the township.— See page 52. 
 
 hundred and sixty acres. That mound I thirty-six are school lands, not open to 
 pointed out is at the southeast corner of regular settlement, but reserved for sale 
 section thirty-six. Sections sixteen and for the benefit of the State school fund. 
 
54 
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE MIRAGE. 
 
 We'll go to that mound. From there 
 we'll run north till we're opposite this 
 land you want, and then west till we 
 reach it, following the lines and measur- 
 ing. When we get back here, the dis- 
 tance traveled will tell me the number of 
 this section and the quarter. After that 
 I'll put up a mound at one corner and 
 mark it, so that I won't have to run the 
 lines again when I want to find other 
 lands near here." 
 
 " So that's the way you do it!" said 
 the farmer, examining the plat with much 
 interest. " But how do you git the town- 
 ship and range? I can't see anything on 
 this plat, nor on the land, to show; and 
 the sections all look alike to me." 
 
 " I couldn't get the township and 
 range without a starting point. I know 
 the township and range of my sister's 
 land, and originally I started from there. 
 You know, though, how they are found in 
 the first place?" 
 
 " Can't say that I do," Mr. Brown ad- 
 mitted, looking at the boy with growing 
 admiration. 
 
 "Well, the townships are numbered 
 southward from a base line, which, in this 
 State, is the dividing line between Kansas 
 and Nebraska. Township eighteen, is 
 eighteen townships south of the Nebraska 
 line; and as each township is six miles 
 square, that makes six times eighteen, or 
 one hundred and eight miles south of 
 Nebraska. The ranges are counted from 
 a line running north and south through 
 
 the State near the city of Wichita; and 
 any range east or west is counted in the 
 same way. Thus, range forty, west, is 
 two hundred and forty miles west of 
 Wichita." 
 
 " I see," said the farmer. " You're al- 
 most a surveyor, a'ready. You'll make a 
 good one, too. Now we'll find out what 
 the number of this bit of land is, and if 
 the plat shows it is vacant, I'll feel bet- 
 ter." 
 
 When the mound was reached, Clif- 
 ford placed on it his small hand compass 
 set on a shingle. In the center of the 
 shingle he had cut a bed for the compass, 
 and at each end of the shingle he had 
 fixed pointers, or "sights," the whole 
 being a rude and cheap imitation of a sur- 
 veyor's instrument, minus the telescope. 
 
 As the magnetic pole is not the true 
 pole, Clifford found true north by taking 
 into account the eleven degrees eastern 
 deviation of the needle in this longitude. 
 Then, leaving the compass resting on the 
 mound, he tied a handkerchief to one of 
 the front wheels of the wagon. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Brown," he said, " if you 
 will ride ahead on your horse about a half 
 mile as near as you can guess, I'll motion 
 you into position by waving my hands, 
 and will then follow you with the 
 wagon." 
 
 This the farmer did, stopping when he 
 thought he had gone far enough. Clif- 
 ford, sighting across the compass, mo- 
 tioned him to the right, until he was 
 
IN TEE LAND OF THE MIRAGE. 
 
 55 
 
 directly north of the mound. After that, of!" said Glover, riding up to the wagon. 
 Clifford mounted the wagon seat and " But you'll not make anything by it. 
 drove toward Mr. Brown, counting the I'm going in to see your firm about it 
 revolutions of the wagon wheel to which to-morrow. 
 
 the handkerchief was tied. He had "Better let this youngster alone!" he 
 found by trial that two hundred and advised, turning to Brown. " He cheated 
 twenty revolutions of the wheel measured me, and I don't doubt he'll cheat you if 
 off a half mile, and when that many were he gets the chance!" 
 counted he stopped the team. 
 
 A search in the grass disclosed the pits 
 made by the government surveyors a num- 
 ber of years before. Two of these were 
 found at the quarter-section corners and 
 four at the section corners. 
 
 " This isn't accurate enough for regu- 
 lar surveying, when lines are to be estab- 
 lished, but it's rapid, and answers my 
 purpose," said Clifford, with a pleased 
 smile, when the pits had been found. 
 
 From these pits another half mile was 
 run. The land desired by Mr. Brown of that kind," said the farmer, closely 
 was reached without trouble, for Clifford eying the youth. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 FIBE FEOM THE ENEMY. 
 
 Mr. Glover rode away, 
 Clifford, with flushed 
 face, explained to the 
 farmer the meaning of 
 Glover's statements. 
 " You don't look like you'd do a thing 
 
 had set up on it a stake and a flag. The 
 plat showed that quarter-section to be 
 vacant, too, to the farmer's delight. Then 
 the proper blank was filled out, giving 
 the number, township and range, that 
 there might be no error when the farmer 
 went to Bush & File, who were to p.er- 
 
 " Indeed, Mr. Brown, I couldn't!" was 
 Clifford's earnest declaration. " I should- 
 n't be able to sleep of nights if I had 
 done such a thing. But Mr. Glover re- 
 fuses to believe me." 
 
 " 'Tain't pleasant to have enemies, 
 that's a fact!" the farmer philosophically 
 
 form the legal part of the work before the observed, as they jogged on. " I've had 
 
 United States land office. 'em, and I know. There's only one way 
 
 As Clifford and the farmer rode back to do, though. Treat 'em just the same 
 in the spring wagon, they crossed section as if they was friends, so fur as they'll let 
 twenty, in the upper township, and there you, and keep yourself above the mean- 
 met Mr. Glover. ness they charge to you." 
 
 " This is the land you swindled me out That the old farmer did not instantly 
 
56 
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE M1BAGE. 
 
 lose faith in him, was a great comfort to 
 Clifford King. 
 
 " Perhaps others will believe me, too," 
 he thought; " and by and by they'll know 
 the truth." 
 
 The next morning Clifford saw Mr. 
 Glover ride away in the direction of the 
 town, and it made him uneasy. But 
 when three or four days passed and no 
 complaint came from Rush & File, he be- 
 gan to feel sure that Glover had not been 
 able to injure him in the eyes of the firm. 
 
 Clifford located two other men that 
 week; and on the following Saturday he 
 drove into town with his sister. They 
 needed supplies. They also wanted to 
 attend church on Sunday, and Clifford 
 desired to see the firm. It required the 
 greater part of one day to make the trip 
 in. 
 
 Clifford found opportunity for an in- 
 terview with Mr. Rush that evening. 
 
 " Yes, Glover came to us and told his 
 story," said Mr. Rush. " I thought it 
 quite likely you had made a mistake. 
 Such things have happened. I assured 
 him, though, that if you had I knew it 
 was unintentional, and that we stood 
 ready to do whatever was right in the 
 matter. But we couldn't come to any 
 agreement, and he went away angry." 
 
 Mr. Rush was a small, alert man, with 
 jet black hair and eyes. He nervously 
 drummed the table with a pencil as he 
 talked. 
 
 "We should have written you, only 
 
 we've been too busy. But don't let it 
 worry you. We're having all the work 
 we can do, and Mr. Glover can't hurt us 
 much. The settlers are fairly tumbling 
 over each other. We're expecting to send 
 you a whole wagon-load next Wednesday. 
 A party is coming out from Ohio, that we 
 shall try to locate up there." 
 
 Mr. Rush's black eyes lightened in 
 anticipation of the harvest he expected 
 from the stampeding influx of people 
 who were anxious to obtain government 
 land. 
 
 " There's another thing," said Rush, 
 " and I'm glad you're here, for I can talk 
 to you about it better than write it. 
 We're going to- start a town in the very 
 center of your county, just five miles from 
 you. We shall call it Vego Center; and 
 we intend to boom it and try to make it 
 the county seat. Columbus Holmes, who 
 is running in opposition to us, is going to 
 start a town north of you on Cottonwood 
 Creek, to be named Columbus. He tried 
 to get the section we got, but we were 
 ahead of him. So he took the other, and 
 is going to make a point of the fact that 
 his location is a little more picturesque, 
 and, as he says, more desirable as a site 
 for a town. But the fact that we shall 
 be right in the center of the county gives 
 us such an advantage that there isn't a 
 doubt that our town will win." 
 
 The idea of a real estate firm starting 
 a town in this way was something new to 
 Clifford. 
 
IN THE LAND OF THE MIRAGE. 57 
 
 " We begin the surveys Monday, and town there would be to make Glover more 
 we shall have an agent right there all the bitter in his enmity, 
 time. You will work under him and re- As Clifford walked up the street, he 
 port to him. We want you to put in your saw more than a hundred men in line 
 best work for Vego Center. We shall awaiting their turn to reach the delivery 
 give you a lot, so that you may feel that window of the post-office. The line ex- 
 you have an interest 
 in it aside from the 
 fees." 
 
 As Clifford went 
 out into the street, 
 with the shadows of 
 night gathering and 
 the lamps beginning 
 to shine in the offices 
 and business houses, 
 the intoxicating spirit 
 of the boom, commu- 
 nicated to him by Mr. 
 Rush, gathered force 
 by what he saw and 
 heard. The streets 
 were filled with men 
 who were talking of 
 land and locations, 
 quarter - sections and 
 town lots, and of 
 towns and county 
 seats that existed as 
 yet only on paper. 
 
 Cottonwood Creek, where Columbus 
 Holmes was to start his town, was the 
 creek Clifford had visited. The proposed 
 site lay just north of that section twenty 
 where Glover claimed he should have been 
 filed. The probable effect of starting a 
 
 Put in your best work for Vego Center," said Mr. Rush. 
 
 tended from within the post-office some 
 distance down the street, and he was in- 
 formed that many of the men had been 
 standing thus in line for more than an 
 hour. It was the same way at the land 
 office, he was told. The real estate firms 
 
58 
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE MIBAGE. 
 
 had men who took the location filings for 
 the day and stationed themselves before 
 the land office windows as early as one 
 o'clock in the morning, that they might 
 be sure to get the filings in among the 
 first when the office opened for business 
 at nine o'clock. 
 
 Out of the Saturday night rush and 
 clamor into the peaceful calm of a church 
 on Sunday morning, was like a transition 
 to another world. Probably a hundred 
 people were gathered in the little church. 
 The windows were open to let in the 
 talmy, pleasant air, and the shade of a 
 Cottonwood spread a shifting mottled ear- 
 pet on the carpetless aisle near the seat 
 to which Clifford and Katie had been 
 shown by the usher. 
 
 How quiet and peaceful it all was! Yet 
 Clifford's thoughts lingered with pro- 
 jected towns and vacant quarter-sections, 
 until the minister read the text: " What 
 shall it profit it a man if he gain the 
 whole world and lose his own soul?" 
 
 The minister was a man past middle 
 age, with whitening hair and beard. He 
 had seen much of the world, he said, and 
 knew well from experience and observa- 
 tion how unsatisfying are the riches of 
 this earth alone. In great tenderness 
 and love he urged his hearers, the 
 majority of whom were strangers to him 
 and to each other, to " seek first the king- 
 dom of God and his righteousness." 
 
 It strengthened and steadied the heart 
 
 of the youth, who was in danger of being 
 swept away into forgetfulness by the 
 whirl of this marvellous land rush; and, 
 when he returned with his sister, the 
 next day, to the claim and to the work 
 of building the house and of locating 
 land-hungry men, he had a sweet inner 
 calm that was blessed and helpful. He 
 would put his life and all its interests 
 in the keeping of the Loving One. He 
 would strive to do what was right and 
 leave all to him. 
 
 By the close of the week the sites of 
 the new towns of Vego Center and 
 Columbus had been laid off, and strings 
 of lumber wagons were hauling out ma- 
 terial, and buildings were being erected. 
 It was the way of this new country. 
 Everything was done in a feverish rush. 
 
 The starting of these towns sent a 
 swarm of settlers in that direction, and 
 for a time Clifford had almost more work 
 than he could do. His house-building 
 was entirely suspended, and he was away 
 from home so much that Katie got a girl 
 from one of the settlers' families to stay 
 with her for a time. 
 
 While on his way home one afternoon 
 from a hurried trip to Vego Center, Clif- 
 ford was surprised to see Glover's horses 
 grazing in a small valley a long distance 
 from Glover's claim. They were drag- 
 ging their picket pins at the ends of the 
 rope lariats, showing that they had es- 
 caped by pulling the picket pins out of 
 the ground. 
 
ZF THE LAND OF THE MIBAGE. 
 
 59 
 
 Eecent rains had somewhat softened 
 the hard soil, so that it was an easy mat- 
 ter for a lariated horse to drag out its 
 picket pin. 
 
 Another effect of the rains was the dis- 
 appearance of the mirages. No mirages 
 showed when the grass and soil were wet. 
 Only when earth and sky became arid and 
 desert-like were the mirages to be seen. 
 The dryer the weather the more beautiful 
 and strange were their manifestations. 
 
 "Mr. Glover's horses have pulled their 
 picket pins and got away, and of course 
 he don't know where they are," was Clif- 
 ford's conclusion, as soon as he saw the 
 horses. " I suppose I ought to drive 
 "them home for him. I should like to 
 have a neighbor do that for me, if our 
 ponies should get away." 
 
 Clifford was in a hurry, though. To 
 drive the team home meant trouble and 
 loss of time, and just then time was 
 money. 
 
 " And he's doing all he can to injure 
 me," was Clifford's indignant thought. 
 " I've lost two locations through him this 
 week. That means ten dollars. My 
 golden harvesting time will be over just 
 as soon as the land is all taken, which will 
 be before long, and ten dollars means a 
 good deal to us now." 
 
 " What shall it profit a man if he gain 
 the whole world and lose his own soul?" 
 came back to Clifford from the minister's 
 discourse. 
 
 As he sat on his pony and looked down 
 
 into the little valley where the horses were 
 grazing, he knew that if he did not drive 
 them home or tell Mr. Glover where they 
 were to be found, Glover might search 
 vainly for them for days. 
 
 " But I can't afford to ' gain the world ' 
 dishonestly," he muttered, as he turned 
 in the direction of the straying horses. 
 The words of Abner Brown, the Illinois 
 farmer, came to strengthen him: " Treat 
 'em just the same as if they was friends, 
 so fur as they'll let you." 
 
 Clifford rode down into the valley and 
 turned the horses in the direction of 
 home. They were not easy to drive, 
 however, for they enjoyed to the utmost 
 this newly-found freedom, and several 
 times tried to break away. The dragging 
 picket pins impeded them, though, and 
 made it possible for Clifford to keep them 
 headed in the general direction of 
 Glover's. 
 
 There was a queer look on Glover's 
 face when he came out of his tent and 
 saw the horses being driven in by Clif- 
 ford. 
 
 " I've been hunting for those runaways 
 for two days," he said, " and have sent 
 word in every direction. Where did you 
 find 'em?" 
 
 Clifford explained. 
 
 " I'm obliged to you, I'm sure," said 
 Glover. " I didn't expect it of you." 
 
 Clifford flushed. " Neighbors should 
 be neighborly; it was only doing as I 
 would wish another to do by me." 
 
60 
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE MIBAOE. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know," said Glover. Then 
 he added, a little embarrassedly, " Have 
 you heard that I am to be the agent here 
 for Columbus Holmes? That'll put us 
 against each other." , 
 
 " And you're thinking that perhaps I 
 returned your horses to gain your good- 
 will, so that you won't fight me so hard?" 
 Clifford questioned, that feeling of hurt 
 indignation again rankling. " I didn't; 
 though I do hope we may be able to 
 treat each other fairly, even if we are to 
 represent opposing interests!" 
 
 He turned his pony to ride away. 
 
 " I didn't say you did that; I only — " 
 
 But Clifford King was now out of hear- 
 ing of further explanations. 
 
 CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 LOCATING RIVAL TOWNS. 
 
 DAYS and weeks im- 
 mediately following 
 this unsatisfactory 
 meeting between Clif- 
 ford King and David 
 Glover, showed that 
 Glover was a man of 
 intense activity. Columbus 
 Holmes could not have found a more 
 industrious agent or zealous champion. 
 Glover worked and talked early and late 
 to induce settlers to take the vacant lands 
 about Columbus and to invest in its lots. 
 
 Clifford, who was working quite as hard 
 for Eush & File and for Vego Center, 
 found Glover a competitor worthy of his 
 best efforts. 
 
 Though they often met, they took little 
 notice of each other. There was one 
 gratifying thing, though. Clifford began 
 to hear less and less of attacks made upon 
 him by Glover. By and by it became evi- 
 dent that G'lover had almost wholly 
 ceased to speak of the thing on which he 
 had so constantly harped at the outset. 
 
 Clifford fancied this might be due to 
 the fact that the story had ceased to be 
 an available weapon. The lands were 
 soon all taken; and this was followed by 
 such an era of excitement that men had 
 little time and less patience to listen to 
 the story of a boy's blunder or wrong- 
 doing. 
 
 Within two months after the surveys 
 were made, each of the rival towns was 
 able to boast of stores, hotels and business 
 houses; together with a goodly number of 
 inhabitants, whose chief business seemed 
 to be to sell lots and lands to each other 
 and to all comers. 
 
 It was impossible for Clifford King 
 and his sister to escape entirely the con- 
 tagion that filled the air. Clifford had 
 made money so rapidly that they felt they 
 could safely invest three hundred dollars 
 of it in Vego Center property. They 
 heard that Glover was putting every cent 
 he could earn and borrow into Columbus. 
 
 " We can afford to stake down a little," 
 
said Clifford. " I shouldn't want to risk 
 all, though, as Mr. Glover is doing." 
 
 After this step had been taken, and 
 Katie had given 
 herself time to 
 think, she spoke to 
 Clifford with ques- 
 tioning earnestness. 
 
 " Clif, dear," she 
 said, " it does seem 
 as though there was 
 more excitement 
 and rivalry over 
 this work than is 
 just right, doesn't 
 it?" 
 
 "Well," said 
 Clifford, " perhaps 
 some are claiming 
 more for the future 
 of this part of the 
 country than is 
 just warrantable. 
 But time may 
 prove them nearer 
 right than we 
 think." 
 
 The summer had 
 turned very hot. 
 The grateful rains 
 had ceased to fall. 
 
 The grass was beginning to sere and the 
 mirages had returned. What crops had 
 been planted were withering. The farm- 
 ers grew sober. 
 
 Clifford did not return to the work of 
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE MIRAGE. 61 
 
 building the house. He could not afford 
 to do that sort of work now. So he hired 
 a carpenter; and, because money was 
 
 We shall beat you!" Glover declared.— See page 62 
 
 coming in rapidly, the house was prac- 
 tically rebuilt and slightly enlarged. 
 
 " I wish I could do something to make 
 money," said Katie. " It is too bad that 
 one can be only a woman and a house- 
 
62 
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE MIRAGE. 
 
 keeper in such a time as this! But you location of the county seat. Naturally 
 just wait, Clifford, till there's a demand Clifford and Katie wanted Vego Center to- 
 
 for a school in this neighborhood, which 
 won't be long now! Then jou'll see me 
 blossom out into a full-fledged school- 
 ma'am!" 
 
 " And instruct Mr. Glover's children?" 
 laughed Clifford. 
 
 "Yes, and all the others." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Glover has become quite 
 friendly lately. Did I tell you that he 
 actually nodded to me as we passed yes- 
 terday? I was surprised." 
 
 "And glad, I hope?" 
 
 "Y-e-s. I'm sure I want to be 
 friendly." 
 
 David Glover had also erected a little 
 
 win. Their interests were there, as well 
 as most of their new friends and acquaint- 
 ances. But neither took any active part 
 in bringing success to Vego Center. They 
 were not voters. 
 
 Glover, however, threw himself into the 
 contest with intense ardor on the side of 
 Columbus. For nearly a month before 
 the election he was hardly at home day 
 or night. 
 
 " We shall beat you!" he declared, 
 with a triumphant smile, as he met Clif- 
 ford in the road one day. 
 
 The old "trails," which took the 
 shortest cuts across the country, were giv- 
 ing way to public roads laid out along 
 
 house on his claim and had installed his 
 
 family in it. Houses had multiplied all section lines. 
 
 about. A stage-coach line had been es- " I'm not in this fight," said Clifford, 
 
 tablished. Windmills wheeled and glad to meet Glover more than half way 
 
 whirred in the brisk breezes. Civilization in a spirit of reconciliation, 
 seemed to have come to stay. " But you're interested!" said Glover. 
 
 As yet there were no religious services " You hope your town will win?" 
 
 nearer than Garden City, but a school- 
 house and a minister for Vego Center 
 were talked of. 
 
 When the lands had all been taken up, 
 there was not so much work for Clifford, 
 and he gave more attention to matters at 
 
 " Yes, of course," Clifford answered. 
 " That's natural. And I think it will, 
 too." 
 
 " Never!" Glover asserted. 
 
 On the afternoon of election day Katie 
 and Clifford drove into Vego Center. 
 
 home. The rivalry between Vego Center The country districts were almost de- 
 
 and Columbus had taken a new phase, 
 into which he could not go with spirit, 
 and in which he could have done little 
 anyway because of his youth. This was 
 the struggle now entered upon for the 
 
 serted. All day long men and teams had 
 been seen going toward Columbus and 
 Vego Center and toward other points 
 where there were polling places. The 
 very air seemed charged with a feeling of 
 
IN TEE LAND OF TEE MIRAGE. 
 
 63 
 
 excitement, which made staying at home 
 dull work indeed. 
 
 They found the dusty streets of Vego 
 Center crowded with men who talked 
 earnestly. 
 
 " And to think how little while ago 
 this was but a prairie!" was Clifford's 
 comment. 
 
 As there was no room for the ponies 
 in the over-crowded livery stables, Clif- 
 ford tied them to the spring wagon in a 
 vacant lot and gave them a feed of grain 
 in the wagon-box, after which he and 
 Katie went to the house of a friend, where 
 they knew they would be welcome. There 
 Katie remained, while Clifford sallied out 
 to mingle with the excited crowds in the 
 streets. 
 
 Soon after nightfall the returns began 
 to come in, and then word went round 
 that Vego Center had won. This was 
 followed by victorious cheering. 
 
 The count of the votes cast at Vego 
 Center had been made, and no one now 
 remained at the polling place except the 
 board still in charge of the ballot box and 
 returns. Clifford strolled past this room 
 and beheld the members of the poll board 
 grouped about a table, eating. The night 
 was warm and the windows were open. 
 
 He walked on, intending to start home 
 soon, for the night promised to be dark, 
 and Katie was not fond of night traveling 
 under such conditions. As he turned the 
 corner, where the shadows fell heavy and 
 black, he was surprised to see David 
 
 Glover move away from the side of the 
 building and hurriedly lose himself in 
 the darkness. 
 
 The circumstance struck Clifford as 
 rather singular, and he said to an ac- 
 quaintance, whom he saw a few moments 
 afterward, that " Glover seemed to feel 
 rather lonely in Vego Center." 
 
 The throngs in the streets were still 
 cheering, as Clifford and Katie drove out 
 of the town. 
 
 Even after they had reached home they 
 could see the rockets still ascending. 
 
 " I suppose Mr. Glover does not enjoy 
 seeing them," thought Clifford, as he 
 watered the ponies and led them into the 
 little stable. " Well, I shall be glad when 
 the matter is established beyond a doubt, 
 and life takes up its old ways again." 
 
 Morning brought a bewildering sur- 
 prise. Before the sun had risen, a horse- 
 man clattered up to the house and 
 knocked without dismounting. 
 
 Clifford hastily dressed and opened the 
 door. A slip of paper was handed to him 
 by a deputy sheriff. He glanced at it 
 and saw that it was a subpoena to appear 
 at once before some legal functionary in 
 Vego Center. 
 
 "What does it mean?" he asked, in 
 bewilderment and apprehension. 
 
 "Just this," said the officer. "The 
 ballot-box and returns are missing from 
 the poll-room. The officers have been 
 informed that you can probably give some 
 information that will tend to show who 
 
64 
 
 took them. Of course it was some enemy 
 of Vego Center!" 
 
 Clifford instantly recalled that hasty 
 glimpse of David Glover moving away 
 from the shadow of the poll building. 
 The possible meaning of it almost made 
 his heart stand still. He knew he was to 
 be asked to testify against Glover. But 
 he said nothing of this to Katie. 
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE MIRAGE. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 FALSE ACCUSATION. 
 
 HE officer looked ques- 
 tioningly at Clifford 
 King, in whose face 
 anxiety was plainly 
 written. 
 
 "I — I may speak 
 to my sister?" Clifford asked. 
 
 " And eat a bite, too, if you like. I 
 don't mind waiting a few minutes. It's 
 quite a jaunt out here, and my horse is a 
 little tired." 
 
 Clifford turned back into the house, to 
 meet Katie coming from her room. She 
 had heard the knock and the talk and had 
 risen also and dressed. 
 
 " I've got to go to town at once," Clif- 
 ford said. " Of course that man repeated 
 what I said to him about seeing Mr. 
 Glover near the poll building! It 
 makes me wish we had stayed at home 
 yesterday." 
 
 Both knew that, whatever might be the 
 result to Mr. Glover, it would rekindle his 
 animosity against Clifford. Perhaps, too, 
 Mr. Glover was entirely innocent of anj 
 wrong-doing. He might have had a per- 
 fectly valid reason for being near the poll- 
 room and at the same time not wishing to 
 be recognized. 
 
 " It's too bad!" said Katie, with trem- 
 ulous lip. " Eight when Mr. Glover is 
 beginning to think kindly of you! He 
 is sure to blame you." 
 
 " Has any one been arrested for the 
 theft of the ballot-box?" Clifford stepped 
 to the door and asked the question of the 
 officer. 
 
 " No, not so far as I've heard. I don't 
 know what news they've got, nor what 
 they're expecting to try to show by you. 
 I reckon you could tell that? They're 
 keeping everything quiet." 
 
 He eyed Clifford inquiringly as he said 
 this. 
 
 Clifford turned back into the house 
 without answering. 
 
 " I'm going with you!" Katie declared. 
 " I'll make some coffee and cook some 
 eggs, which won't take long. Tell him 
 we'll be ready to go in a short time." 
 
 Then she hurried into the kitchen, 
 leaving Clifford to talk with the officer, 
 who had now dismounted and was pre- 
 paring to lead his horse to the drinking 
 trough. 
 
 " With the ballot box and returns 
 missing, it will be impossible, of course, 
 
IN THE LAND OF THE M1BAGE. 
 
 65 
 
 for us to show that Vego Center won the 
 election," the officer explained, as Clif- 
 ford walked with him toward the well. 
 " Unless they can 
 be found, or the 
 guilty party made 
 to confess, there 
 will probably have 
 to be a new elec- 
 tion." 
 
 Finding that 
 Clifford did not 
 volunteer the story 
 of which he was 
 supposedly in pos- 
 session, the officer 
 resorted to leading 
 questions to extract 
 it. But Clifford 
 had learned a les- 
 son from the result 
 of his incautious 
 statements of the 
 evening before, and 
 was wary. 
 
 " It might wrong 
 an innocent man, if 
 I should say what I 
 think they intend 
 to question me 
 about," he mused. 
 
 Clifford and Katie drove into town in 
 the spring wagon, with the officer jogging 
 along at their side on his horse. A brisk 
 wind arose and the dust came up the 
 beaten road in clouds. Though the hour 
 
 was early, the south wind was hot and 
 wilting. Now and then an agile sand 
 lizard, delighting in the heat, scampered 
 
 I don't wonder he rides away," said Mrs. Glover. — See page 67. 
 
 along in front of one of the wheels as if 
 tempting its fate. 
 
 " This sort of weather will be hard on 
 the crops," Clifford observed. 
 
 " Yes, if it keeps up it will wither 
 
66 
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE MIBAGE. 
 
 a mighty big crop of hopes. It won't 
 do Vego Center much good to get the 
 county seat if the county raises noth- 
 ing." 
 
 Katie's mind was so burdened that she 
 could hardly endure the talk about ordin- 
 ary things. More than once her blue 
 eyes filled with tears. When he observed 
 this, Clifford became silent. At last 
 Katie leaned her elbow upon the end of 
 the wagon-seat, and, covering her eyes 
 with her small brown hand, strove to 
 regain a quiet spirit. " Oh, Father, 
 whatever comes, keep us close to thee. 
 We will trust thee." And when her head 
 was lifted, her brother saw a calm, strong 
 light in the eyes she turned to him, and 
 he, too, was strengthened. 
 
 When they reached Vego Center her 
 prayer had received its answer. The miss- 
 ing ballot box had been found, and the 
 man who had taken it from the polling 
 place was under arrest and had confessed 
 his crime. Glover was innocent, as this 
 showed. 
 
 Katie laid her head on her hands as 
 she sat in the wagon seat, after the officer 
 had turned away, and sent up a fervent 
 thank-offering. Clifford sympathetically 
 placed a hand on her folded ones, and she 
 took it in her palms. 
 
 "Oh, Clifford!" she said, lifting her 
 head and looking at him through eyes 
 that sparkled with tears, " I am so glad 
 that you didn't have to go before any 
 court and tell that story! How we have 
 
 wronged Mr. Glover by even thinking 
 that he could do such a thing!" 
 
 Clifford was silent, his hand still rest- 
 ing in his sister's. 
 
 " I suppose Glover will hear that he 
 was suspected. Why couldn't I have 
 kept from drawing attention to his pres- 
 ence! I shall see him," he said a mo- 
 ment later, "and tell him all there is to 
 it. It is only fair to him, as doubtless he 
 will hear the rumor." 
 
 Clifford had never seen a more beau- 
 tiful morning than that on which he set 
 out to visit Mr. Glover. The boisterous 
 winds had ceased to blow, the air was 
 sweet and cool and the sky was an arch 
 of purest blue. Even the pony seemed to 
 feel the inspiration of the morning, and 
 without a word of command broke into a 
 brisk canter. 
 
 But Clifford was not able to enjoy all 
 this as he otherwise would have done. 
 The dread of the coming interview with 
 Glover shadowed his spirits. There was 
 a prayer in his heart, though, as he rode 
 on, and there was a satisfaction in know- 
 ing that Katie was praying for him back 
 in the little house he had left. 
 
 He found Glover with horse saddled, 
 ready to ride to Columbus. Though 
 Glover knew that Clifford had ap- 
 proached, he did not look toward him or 
 indicate that he was aware of the youth's 
 presence. 
 
 Clifford's face was pale and his voice 
 quivered as he spoke. Glover's manner 
 
IN THE LAND OF THE M1BAGE. 
 
 67 
 
 showed that he had already heard what Glover has his faults, hut he tries to be 
 
 Clifford had come to tell, and probably honest. He was passing by Vego Center, 
 
 a garbled and incorrect account. coming from the polling place at Cam- 
 
 " I want to speak to you about my ride eron, and he thought he'd just go get the 
 
 into town with that officer," Clifford Vego Center returns, too. He went up to 
 
 hesitatingly began, " so that you may the poll-room and stood a minute in the 
 
 know the exact truth." 
 
 Glover turned on him with fierce 
 anger. 
 
 "Not a word!" he declared. "I don't 
 want to hear a word from you! You 
 failed in your attempt against me, and as he left the place. : 
 
 shadow, listening to the talk in the house. 
 It ain't no more than natural, seems to 
 me, that he should think you started the 
 story that he stole the ballot box and 
 returns, as long as he saw you near just 
 
 now you want to try to explain it away." 
 " I was not responsible for what was 
 
 done, Mr. Glover," said Clifford. "I 
 
 only—" 
 
 But Glover would not hear. He 
 
 swung into the saddle, pulled the head of 
 
 his horse around with an impatient jerk 
 
 and rode away. 
 
 " I don't wonder he rides away," ex- 
 
 Clifford was glad that Mrs. Glover had 
 been willing to listen to his explanation, 
 and hoped that through her it would 
 reach Mr. Glover. Nevertheless, he rode 
 home with a feeling of depression and 
 sadness. 
 
 The discovery of the missing ballot box 
 and returns, and the admissions of the 
 thief, decided the county seat contest in 
 
 plained Mrs. Glover, who had come to the favor of Vego Center, though a suit, 
 
 door. " He is very much hurt." somewhat in the nature of an appeal and 
 
 "I'm sure he has a wrong idea of the protest, which was not likely to change 
 
 whole matter, which I wanted to correct," 
 said Clifford, with pain and regret. 
 " I will explain it to you, if you'll let 
 me," he anxiously continued. 
 
 She remained silent, and Clifford told 
 her the whole story. 
 
 " Mr. Glover hadn't a thing to do with 
 taking that ballot box!" she declared. 
 " Nobody knows better than me that Mr. 
 Glover has his faults; but there's one 
 thing he wouldn't do — steal! Nor he 
 won't cheat anybody, if he knows it. Mr. 
 
 the result, was entered in the courts by 
 the people of Columbus. 
 
 Whatever talk Mrs. Glover had with 
 her husband concerning Clifford's state- 
 ment, it did not change Glover's outward 
 attitude. He passed Clifford without a 
 word, whenever they chanced to meet in 
 the road, and avoided such meetings as 
 much as he could. Still, Clifford could 
 not hear that Glover was engaged in any 
 work of detraction, and for this he was 
 sincerely thankful. 
 
you," said the kind-hearted superinten- 
 dent. " He says he has nothing against 
 you, but he feels very harshly toward 
 your brother and bases his opposition 
 solely on that. I am so sorry! I tried 
 
 68 IN THE LAND OF THE MIBAGE. 
 
 Toward the close of summer the town- 
 ship in which the Glovers and Kings lived 
 was organized into a school district, and 
 a frame building was erected for a school- 
 houso. There were in the district a num- 
 ber of children of school age, and it was to talk him out of it, but I couldn't 
 the intention to have a school later on. 
 
 Katie King had looked forward to this 
 time with much interest, for she hoped 
 to secure the position of teacher. She 
 now consulted some of her friends on the 
 subject, and when Mrs. Kendall, the 
 county superintendent of public instruc- 
 tion, came out from Garden City to look 
 the district over, Katie accompanied her 
 on her rounds, and spoke of her desire to 
 many of the people. 
 
 She would have interviewed Mr. Glover 
 at this time, but her courage was not 
 equal to her wishes 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE LITTLE SCHOOLMA'AM WINS. 
 
 was sup- 
 so many 
 
 ATIE KING 
 ported by 
 
 friends in her desire to 
 become the school 
 teacher, that she con- 
 tinued her efforts to 
 obtain the school in 
 The way he now spite of the opposition of David Glover; 
 ignored Clifford made her timid. How- and, by the advice of the county superin- 
 ever, she asked Mrs. Kendall to talk with tendent, attended the county normal 
 him on the subject. Glover was in many school, held in Garden City in Septem- 
 ways a man of influence and commanded ber. 
 
 a considerable following, and his friend- She successfully passed the required 
 ship or opposition might be sufficient to examinations at the close of the normal, 
 decide the question of who was to teach and was glad to return home. It seemed 
 the school. good to be again with Clifford in the 
 
 Katie remained at home in a state of little prairie house that had become so 
 anxiety while Mrs. Kendall was- absent dear to both. Besides, religious services 
 
 on her mission. When Katie saw the 
 buggy returning she walked out along the 
 road to meet it. Disappointment was 
 written in Mrs. Kendall's face. 
 
 " I am sorry to tell you, dear, that he 
 
 of more than ordinary interest were being 
 held in Columbus and she wanted to at- 
 tend them. 
 
 In all new countries people willingly 
 go long distances to meetings of any kind, 
 
 says he will do everything he can against but in few new countries are long dis- 
 
IN THE LAND OF THE MIRAGE. 
 
 69 
 
 tances traveled so easily as on the prairies. 
 There the roads are almost as smooth and 
 firm as asphalt, when once the buffalo 
 grass is beaten down by passing hoofs and 
 vehicles. The round trip to Columbus 
 was to Katie and Clifford only a delight, 
 on those glorious moonlight nights. 
 
 The stars were brighter and more beau- 
 tiful than any gems. The round moon 
 shone like a silver disk. The clattering 
 hoofs of the ponies, the rattle of the 
 wheels, together with conversation and 
 snatches of song, gave to the trips a de- 
 lightful air. The settlers attended the 
 meetings from far and near, and the gos- 
 pel songs which they often sang as they 
 rolled homeward in the glorious moon- 
 light, sounded through the clear distances 
 with a strange sweetness. 
 
 " I am asking for help to bear as I 
 should the disappointment of not getting 
 that school, if the disappointment comes," 
 said Katie, as she and Clifford drove 
 home one night. " Sometimes I fear I 
 am setting my heart on it too much for 
 my good." 
 
 With the coming of the cool, crisp 
 mornings of October, the mirages took on 
 a new character. Perhaps the things be- 
 held were not really the result of mirage, 
 but simply of a clarified atmosphere, 
 though there were many things to make 
 one believe them to be caused by mirage. 
 
 The most remarkable of these visions 
 was witnessed on the morning of the 
 third of October. Clifford and Katie 
 
 had risen early, intending to drive into 
 Vego Center to transact some business 
 and purchase supplies. Clifford was the 
 first to behold it. 
 
 "Come out here, Katie!" he called, 
 and his tone hurried her to the door. 
 
 Space seemed to have been well-nigh 
 annihilated. The new school - house, 
 which was two miles away, had appar- 
 ently moved up within easy rifle - shot. 
 Glover's house was as near. His stables 
 and corrals, his sod hen-house, his un- 
 sheltered spring wagon, even the big dry- 
 goods box he had made into a well-frame 
 — all were distinctly visible. Buildings 
 and haystacks miles away were brought 
 surprisingly near; while Vego Center and 
 Columbus, the one on the west and the 
 other on the north, were apparently so 
 close at hand that less than a half hour's 
 walk would have sufficed to take Clifford 
 to either of them. Besides all this, the 
 hills and hollows had been smoothed out 
 and the whole country looked as level as 
 a table. To the westward the land rose 
 slightly, and some squares of plowed 
 ground and grain fields made it resemble 
 an uptilted section map. The sight was 
 marvellous. 
 
 "I never saw anything like it!" said 
 Katie, after an interval of awed silence. 
 " Is it mirage?" 
 
 The question was one that Clifford 
 could not answer. He had never heard 
 of mirages of this character. 
 
 " It seems to me I can almost read the 
 
70 
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE MURAGE. 
 
 signs on those Columbus stores," he said. 
 " Perhaps it is just the wonderful clear- 
 ness of the air. It is a long drive over 
 there, and yet one would think the 
 distance could be walked in a few min- 
 utes." 
 
 Almost every morning for a week or 
 more this apparent annihilation of space 
 was witnessed. The newspapers spoke of 
 it, and reports from various places indi- 
 cated that it was to some extent at least 
 the effect of mirage; for reputable men 
 declared they had beheld buildings so far 
 away that they must have been made 
 visible by a mirage, otherwise the curva- 
 ture of the earth and the intervention of 
 well-known elevations of land would have 
 rendered it impossible to see them, no 
 matter how crystalline the air. 
 
 The question of who should teach the 
 district school, the salary to be paid, and 
 other matters, came up at a meeting 
 called for the fifteenth, in the school- 
 house. The school was to begin the first 
 of November. 
 
 There was in Katie's face a heightened 
 color which made her look very winning 
 in Clifford's eyes, as they drove together 
 to the meeting. Katie was always sweet, 
 womanly and attractive. As for Clifford, 
 he had wonderfully developed in the few 
 months he had been on the wide prairies. 
 The work and responsibility were hurry- 
 ing him into manhood. 
 
 As they approached the wooden hitch- 
 ing rack that had been set in place near 
 
 the school-house, they saw Glover driving 
 up the road with his family. 
 
 When Katie and Clifford entered the 
 house they found it already well filled. 
 The question of who should teach their 
 children was rightly considered an im- 
 portant one by these settlers, who, what- 
 ever might be their other differences, held 
 firmly to that grand rallying - cry of the 
 great State of Kansas: "A school-house 
 on every hilltop and no saloon in the 
 valley!" 
 
 David Glover walked quietly into the 
 room, leading his little boy by the hand. 
 He was followed by Mrs. Glover, who was 
 accompanied by her two little daughters. 
 A buzz of excited talk swept through the 
 room, and Katie King's face grew un- 
 comfortably hot, for she was sure that 
 much of this talk concerned her. Clif- 
 ford also colored and shifted uneasily in 
 his seat. 
 
 Promptly at two o'clock the chairman 
 of the school-board called the meeting to 
 order, and, to explain its purpose, read 
 the call. The clerk pushed some papers 
 about his desk and began his notes of the 
 minutes. 
 
 Clifford glanced to the right, where sat 
 Mr. and Mrs. Satterlee. Mr. Satterlee, 
 who had made himself prominent in his 
 new home, had promised to champion 
 Katie's interests. 
 
 Satterlee was a very tall man, and ap- 
 peared to be taller than ever as he unbent 
 and stretched himself to his full height 
 
IN THE LAND OF THE M1BAGE. 71 
 
 in the aisle. An expectant hush fol- culation what she had expected. Clifford 
 lowed. stared in amazement, almost unable-to be- 
 
 " Mr. Chairman," he began, clearing his lieve what he had heard. Even the 
 throat and clutching the seat with his chairman looked surprised, while a storm 
 muscular right 
 
 hand as if the pros- iH&Mifibi^M 
 
 sure gave him con- 
 fidence, " I present 
 to this meeting 
 the name of Miss 
 Katie King for 
 teacher, and move 
 you that we in- 
 struct the board to 
 employ her to 
 teach the first term 
 of our school." 
 
 Instantly Glover 
 arose, steadying 
 himself on his 
 short legs and 
 thrusting one hand 
 deep into his trous- 
 ers' pocket. The 
 silence that ensued 
 was so great that 
 the dropping of the 
 proverbial pin 
 might have been 
 
 heard. Before he spoke it grew absolutely 
 painful. 
 
 " Mr. Chairman," he said, clearing his 
 throat, which seemed husky, " I second 
 the motion!" 
 
 The reaction made Katie King tremble 
 and turn pale. This was not by any cal- 
 
 "Mr. Chairman," he said, "I second the motion!" 
 
 of excited whispers swept through the 
 room. 
 
 Glover sat down and the chairman rose 
 and stated the motion. Then Glover got 
 up again, and this is what he said: 
 
 " Mr. Chairman, a short time since I 
 expected to oppose any motion that 
 
72 
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE Mm AGE. 
 
 might be made here to select Miss King 
 as the teacher of our school. Instead, I 
 stand here to support it. It is very hard 
 for a man of my disposition to admit that 
 he has been in the wrong, but that is 
 what I want to do. I have discovered 
 that Miss King's brother did not assist 
 the officers of Vego Center in trying to 
 fasten a crime on me, and the mirages we 
 
 Before Glover closed, Katie King was 
 in tears and Clifford was visibly affected. 
 
 The motion to choose Miss Katie to 
 conduct the school was carried without a 
 dissenting vote. She was one of the first 
 to take Glover by the hand when the 
 meeting closed, and Clifford followed her 
 closely in this act. 
 
 " You'll not find anybody in the dis- 
 
 have had lately have shown me that I was trict that will stand by you in your work 
 
 deceived in thinking he took me to the 
 southeast quarter of section twenty in 
 the township north. I thought he did, 
 because the trees on the creek looked so 
 near that day; but last week those trees 
 came closer down to me, far closer, than 
 they did the day he showed me my claim, 
 and I knew then that a mirage had fooled 
 me at the very outset. 
 
 with more willingness than I shall!" 
 Glover declared. 
 
 David Glover kept his promise. The 
 school was a success. The Kings never 
 had better friends than the Glovers, nor 
 friends they valued more. A Sunday- 
 school was organized in the school-house. 
 Services were also held there on Sunday 
 mornings. Old rivalries were lost sight 
 
 I have publicly opposed the boy and of, and close friendships formed. To-day 
 
 his sister, and I want to make amends in 
 a manner fully as public. Out here in 
 this new country we ought to live hon- 
 estly, and there is room enough so that 
 we do not need to jostle one another." 
 
 church spires rise heavenward, school 
 bells ring, white houses gleam where once 
 the homesteader's " shack " rested, and 
 one finds it hard to believe that this was 
 ever the land of the mirage. 
 
 THE END. 
 
The Shack on the Plateau. 
 
 BY JOHN H. WHITSON. 
 
 R-R-R-R-R-R — 
 
 Bicycle was racing 
 against fire. 
 
 The bicycle bore a 
 boy and a small mail- 
 bag. The boy was 
 Jepthah Gwin, the youthful carrier of the 
 star route mail. 
 
 " Parmenter is in town, I know, for I 
 saw him just before I left!" 
 
 It was not this thought of Parmenter, 
 however, but a thought of Parmenter's 
 little girl, which made the young bicy- 
 clist's feet " pump " harder on the pedals. 
 
 On the top of that plateau, toward 
 which both he and the fire were racing, 
 was Parmenter's home, an unpretentious 
 prairie " shack," containing Flossie Par- 
 menter, whose age was less than twelve. 
 
 Jep Gwin had observed the smoke of 
 the fire soon after leaving Paragon City. 
 It was then in the west. In less than an 
 hour it had swept across the northern 
 horizon. Now it was climbing the grassy 
 sand-hills. 
 
 " She'll be seared to death," was his 
 reflection. " It's a bad fire, too. The 
 grass is so dry it burns like shavings. 
 And not a furrow round his house for a 
 fire-guard! I don't know what Mr. Par- 
 menter would think to see me on this side 
 
 trail, heading toward his house; but I'm 
 going there, just the same." 
 
 Lewis Parmenter and the young mail- 
 carrier were not on good terms. Not 
 long before, Jepthah Gwin's father had 
 tried to get Parmenter's claim by a " con- 
 test " in the United States Land Office at 
 Paragon City, taking advantage of that 
 provision of the land law which provides 
 for a contest when the holder of public 
 land does not comply with all the legal 
 requirements. Though Gwin had failed 
 to get the land, the incident provoked a 
 bitter hostility against him and his family 
 on the part of Parmenter. 
 
 So violent was this dislike that Par- 
 menter would not speak to the boy when 
 they met in the trail; and once, when 
 Jepthah stopped at the Parmenter well 
 to get a drink, being very hot and thirsty 
 from the long run down from Pawnee 
 Loup, Parmenter had refused him the 
 water and angrily ordered him away. 
 
 The young mail-carrier could not help 
 thinking of these things, as he sent the 
 bicycle spinning over the level, lonely 
 trail. He could think of Parmenter only 
 as ugly and mean; and it seemed to him 
 but a part of Parmenter's cross-grained 
 nature that he should leave Flossie alone 
 in the shack while he went to town, 
 
 73 
 
74 
 
 THE SHACK ON THE PLATEAU. 
 
 a thing Parmenter was known to do 
 often. 
 
 " I'm afraid the fire will beat me," he 
 gasped, as he saw a tongue of flame leap 
 upward and climb like a writhing red 
 serpent to the top of the highest hill. 
 " It's on the plateau now!" 
 
 The hillsides over which the fire had 
 passed were hot and smoldering; the de- 
 vastated expanses below them were a 
 blackened waste. The fire had rioted 
 wildly through the heavier grass of the 
 sand-hills, but now it had only the short 
 buffalo-grass with which to feed its ener- 
 gies. 
 
 It was a plains fire, and not a true 
 prairie fire. A prairie fire, fed by a 
 growth of tall "blue-stem," gives a fire 
 before which animals and men flee for 
 their very lives; but a plains fire, sus- 
 tained only by the short buffalo-grass, 
 may roar and race, and still do little 
 harm. Often it is possible to ride a 
 horse through such a fire without more 
 injury to the animal than a singeing of 
 its fetlocks and legs. 
 
 Yet the fact that there was no " guard " 
 of grassless plowed ground surrounding 
 and protecting Parmenter's shack made 
 the situation serious for Flossie Parmen- 
 ter. The house might be ignited, or 
 Flossie, in trying to beat the flames back 
 from the doorway, might fire her dress 
 and be burned to death. 
 
 When Jep had pedaled to the top of 
 the knoll that now confronted him, he 
 
 noticed a dozen tongues of flame shoot- 
 ing out like red sword points, staying not 
 a moment for the blockading effect of 
 the narrow, grassless trail, but hurrying, 
 as it seemed, straight for Parmenter's 
 home. 
 
 He saw Flossie Parmenter dart out and 
 in at the door. 
 
 " I hope she'll not try to run away 
 from the house," was the thought and the 
 fear that thrilled him. " If she does, 
 the fire will get her sure." 
 
 He recalled how Jasper Kane's mother 
 had tried to do that, the year before, and 
 had been sadly burned. In his alarm he 
 cried out to Flossie to remain in the 
 house, that he was coming; but of course 
 she did not hear him. 
 
 To gain time he turned the bicycle 
 sharply from the trail, thus saving the 
 long arm of an angle. Though the 
 buffalo-grass was short and seemingly as 
 smooth as a velvet sward, it was really 
 hillocky, and the bicycle jumped and 
 jarred. Nevertheless, he bent over the 
 handle-bars and threw the whole strength 
 of his limbs and the weight of his body 
 upon the pedals. 
 
 " Go back! Go back!" he shouted, as 
 he looked up and saw her again appear 
 at the door. 
 
 He was moving much faster than the 
 fire, but it was still a question if he 
 would not be beaten in the race. The 
 crackle and roar came to him quite plainly 
 now. Tumble-weeds, big as tubs and 
 
THE SHACK ON THE PLATEAU. 
 
 75 
 
 round as oranges, ignited and flew on be- 
 fore the fire, bounding balls of flame, 
 driven by the brisk wind. Blazing resin 
 weeds shot high into the air like burning 
 arrows. Over all hung a cloud of pun- 
 gent smoke. 
 
 He swung in front of that threatening 
 red line and gained rapidly. As he drew 
 near the house, Flossie saw him and ran 
 out to meet him. Her eyes were big and 
 bright, and she was dreadfully fright- 
 ened. He set her in front of him on the 
 bicycle. 
 
 "Is there water in the troughs?" he 
 asked, glancing toward the motionless 
 wind-mill. 
 
 "I — I don't know," she faltered. 
 
 " "We'll soon see. I'm going to take you 
 back to the house. You mustn't be 
 afraid." 
 
 Then he raced on, as fast as before. 
 He reached the house a fourth of a mile 
 in advance of the fire; and in the short 
 time that was left to him he dampened 
 the sod and the boards on the side of the 
 shack which the fire would first attack. 
 
 Then the fire came down with a 
 threatening roar, and Jepthah retreated 
 into the flimsy building, with the child, 
 the bicycle and mail-bag, and a pail of 
 water. 
 
 He heard the angry crackle of the 
 flames, and saw them, too, through the 
 small window, as they leaped to the 
 assault. The air grew hot and stifling. 
 
 "Don't be scared," he said encourag- 
 
 ingly to Flossie. " If the house should 
 catch, I think I can put the fire out with 
 this water. I don't believe, though, it 
 will catch. You don't feel much afraid, 
 with me here, do you?" 
 
 " No," she answered bravely, although 
 there was a tearful note in her voice, and 
 her face was white. " No, really I don't. 
 I was scared, though, before you came. 
 I didn't know you were such a good boy, 
 Jep Gwin. I'm going to tell papa all 
 about it." 
 
 Jep blushed and looked confused. He 
 was wondering what Parmenter would 
 say, when Flossie told him that he, Jep, 
 was a good boy. 
 
 " I say," he exclaimed suddenly, after 
 they had watched the fire a little longer, 
 " I wish you'd tell your father that pa 
 wasn't just trying to be mean when he 
 contested his claim. We're — we're aw- 
 fully hard up — and it seemed 's if pa 
 had to take every chance he could to 
 make a little. It wasn't just pure mean- 
 ness, though I know it looks that way. 
 Ma and I felt bad because it happened, 
 and I'm glad enough I got here in time 
 to help you to-day." 
 
 " I'll tell father," repeated Flossie. 
 
 She did tell him, and the result was 
 that the neighborhood was spared the 
 example and influence of a feud which 
 might have wrought much evil. And 
 that was what the combination of a kind- 
 hearted boy and a bicycle accomplished 
 in less than an hour's time. 
 
JOHNH.WHITSON 
 
 ^\ HEROINE 
 
 OF Tl+E 
 
 Pl^LNS 
 
 ((WHEwr 
 
 " " Walt Dixon, coming quickly in 
 out of the storm with a trailing rope 
 about his waist, drew in the rope with a 
 jerk of his mittened hand and closed the 
 door with a bang. 
 
 "You're nearly frozen, I know!" de- 
 clared Miss Minnie, who had been wait- 
 ing for him. " Hurry to the stove and 
 I'll help you off with your things. Are 
 the ponies and cow all right?" 
 
 " Yes; and I got down a lot of feed for 
 'em. It's warm as toast in the stable, 
 but it's just awful outside!" 
 
 He stamped over to the stove, shaking 
 the suow from his shaggy coat. He drew 
 off his mittens and warmed his hands, 
 
 while his sister untied the rope, took the 
 disfiguring oil-cloth mask off his face, and 
 then helped him out of the heavy coat. 
 
 A genuine blizzard was screaming 
 across the Kansas plains. So snow-filled 
 was the air that one could not see ten 
 yards in any direction. It was a dry 
 snow, fine and powdery as flour, but with 
 almost the cutting sting of powdered 
 glass. 
 
 The forenoon had seemed to hold the 
 balmy promise of spring. It had been 
 so pleasant that Minnie Dixon had taken 
 a long gallop on her pony. Some of the 
 farmers had even set their plows to going. 
 Then the blue-black line, scarcely noticed 
 at first, lifted itself high in the sky, and 
 
A EEBOINE OF THE PLAINS. 
 
 77 
 
 the blizzard leaped out of the north with There was a square window in each 
 
 the whiz of a bolt from a crossbow. gable, and a door facing the east, from 
 
 As the storm increased in severity and which point comes the least wind. This 
 
 the cold grew more intense, Miss Minnie door was reached by way of a horizontal 
 
 had become so anxious about the comfort door at the surface and by a short flight 
 
 of the cow and the ponies that she per- of earthen steps. One who has never seen 
 
 mitted her brother to venture to the a well-kept prairie dug-out will perhaps 
 
 stable, with one end of a long rope tied not readily believe how cozy such a 
 
 about his waist, and the other end to the house can be made, by means of white 
 
 latch of the outer door, that on his return plastering, or wall-paper, pictures, books 
 
 he might not miss his way. and flowers. 
 
 " I'm glad now that the roof doesn't Miss Minnie Dixon was a teacher in the 
 
 stick up any higher than it does," she intermediate department of the Webster 
 
 said, with a nervous laugh, after helping City schools. She was an intelligent, 
 
 him out of the coat. It was a man's educated young woman, but dependent on 
 
 coat and a world too big for him. " I her own resources. There was a great 
 
 used to feel ashamed of this little dug- scramble for government land at the 
 
 out, but in such a storm it seems good to time, and she had taken this pre-emption 
 
 be in a cellar!" of one hundred and sixty acres, a few 
 
 " A dug-out is good enough for any- miles out of town, and it became her 
 
 body, on a pre-emption," Walt declared, home for the period of time required by 
 
 glancing round the interior, " and it's a the law in such cases. 
 lot warmer than the frame houses some of In pleasant weather she drove in and 
 
 the homesteaders have put up." out daily. At other times she boarded in 
 
 Walt was rather proud of the dug-out, town; but Walt remained at the dug-out, 
 for it was largely the work of his own " baching," when his sister was away, 
 hands. He had excavated the cellar-like and getting along as well as he could, 
 lower part, and had put together the However, Minnie had been at home now 
 upper part and the roof, of " ship-lap " several days, during the midwinter vaca- 
 boards and tarred paper, bracing the tion, which was nearing its end. 
 whole securely against the force of the " I wish I'd gone to town this morn- 
 winds by anchoring the corners to cedar ing," she said, thoughtfully; but added, 
 posts set deeply in the ground. The a moment later: " No, I don't, for that 
 inner walls he had plastered, laying the would have left you here in the storm 
 plastering on the firm dry earth, to which alone, and I should have been worried 
 it readily adhered. about you." 
 
78 
 
 A HEE01NE OF THE PLAINS. 
 
 "What was that?" asked Walt, turning 
 his head. " I thought I heard wheels. 
 Must have been the wind, though!" 
 
 His sister stepped to the little window 
 in the south gable and sought to look out. 
 The air was a white blur, which her sight 
 could not penetrate. Then she, too, 
 heard a sound which unmistakably was 
 not made by the storm. 
 
 " It's something or somebody!" she de- 
 clared. 
 
 Walt, who was toasting his knees by 
 the stove, put on his cap, hurried to the 
 door and stumbled up the dark passage. 
 As he lifted the outer door, he thrust it 
 against the legs of a man, whom he now 
 dimly saw through the swirling drift. 
 Then he heard a horse stamp, and knew 
 that a team had been driven into the lee 
 of the house. 
 
 "Come right in!" he said cheerily. 
 "Awful storm, isn't it?" 
 
 The man tried to reach the steps, but 
 stumbled, and was only saved from a fall 
 by the strong hands of the boy. 
 
 "I'm — I'm purty well tuckered!" the 
 man mumbled in a dull way. " I thought 
 I was out o' the road till I — I struck 
 your house." 
 
 Walt caught the man's arm to support 
 bim; and when they had stumbled down 
 the passage, the inner door was opened by 
 Miss Minnie. Not till he was in the 
 room did Walt know that the man was 
 Timothy Jepson, who lived on a claim 
 two miles south. 
 
 Jepson was so chilled and benumbed 
 he could hardly move, and when they got 
 his wraps off they discovered that he was 
 somewhat frozen. He wanted to get 
 near the fire, but Miss Minnie insisted 
 that he must not for a few minutes, and 
 she had Walt bring snow with which to 
 rub Mr. Jepson's hands and feet. Mean- 
 while, Jepson's team was taking the 
 storm; the force of which was, however, 
 much cut off by the upper part of the 
 dug-out. 
 
 " I've been trying to make it home," 
 said Jepson, in an exhausted voice. " I've 
 coal and stuff in the wagon, and the chil- 
 dren hain't a thing in the house. I could 
 'a' staid at Fairehild's — he wanted me 
 to — but the children — " 
 
 " Are they alone?" Miss Minnie 
 anxiously asked. 
 
 " All alone," said Jepson. " Soon's 
 I git a bit warm I've got to push on 
 home." 
 
 Tears came into the eyes of the kind- 
 hearted young woman, and with the tears 
 came a heroic resolve. The Jepson chil- 
 dren were motherless. There were three 
 of them, the oldest not yet ten. In 
 fancy she saw them, hungry, freezing 
 and terrified, in the poor, tireless, food- 
 less " shack " rocking in the blizzard as 
 if it would go to pieces. She saw that 
 Jepson could not go on; that it would be 
 suicidal for him to attempt it. He had 
 fought the gale until his strength was 
 gone. She even wondered if his team 
 
A HEROINE OF THE PLAINS. 
 
 79 
 
 could make the remainder of the jour- 
 ney. 
 
 Ordinarily Miss Minnie was not a 
 courageous young woman. She had been 
 known to scream at sight of a mouse, and 
 to run from a prairie rattlesnake as if it 
 were a grizzly bear, even though she had 
 a stick in her hand with which she might 
 easily have dispatched it. She sometimes 
 wondered at the daring that had induced 
 her to take the pre-emption, and could 
 only account for it by saying that she had 
 been made temporarily insane by the 
 " land - fever." But now courage of a 
 quality she had never before known was 
 rising in her heart. She was not ignorant 
 of the danger that flew on the blizzard's 
 snowy wings. Not for forty pre-emptions 
 would she have ventured out into the 
 storm, but those poor children drew her. 
 
 " Mr. Jepson can't go," was her inward 
 comment, "and I won't let Walt risk it, 
 though he'd go in a minute if I'd suggest 
 it, God bless him! But he might get lost. 
 Oh, those poor little children!" 
 
 " I'm going to take the load on to Mr. 
 Jepson's," she said, speaking to Walt. 
 
 He stared at her as if he could not be- 
 lieve it, but he saw that she was in 
 earnest. 
 
 " You'll freeze to death!" he gasped. 
 "You'll get lost! If it's got to be done, 
 better let me try it!" 
 
 " No, I'm going myself. I'm quite 
 strong, you know, and I'm older. I'll 
 put on your coat and I'll wrap up well. 
 
 I'll not get lost if I keep close to the 
 fence. Go out and see how Mr. Jepson's 
 horses are. I'd rather take them, if 
 they're all right; they're already hitched 
 up, and our ponies might not want to go 
 in that direction, and so might get out of 
 the trail." 
 
 Walt hurried away to do her bidding, 
 though he was filled with misgivings. 
 He found that Jepson's horses were some- 
 what protected by blankets, but they were 
 uneasy and evidently very cold. 
 
 " They'll do, I guess," he muttered. 
 " It's only a pull of two miles, and they'll 
 keep to the trail, as she said, better'n our 
 ponies. But I'm afraid for her, though. 
 I'm awfully afraid!" 
 
 He clawed the snow out of his eyes 
 and tried to look down the trail that led 
 toward Jepson's. He could see nothing 
 but that smothering white blur, could not 
 even see the board and wire fence of the 
 Arkansas Kiver Cattle Company that ran 
 close beside the trail, though he knew 
 that a half-dozen steps would take him 
 to it. 
 
 " The horses '11 do," he announced, re- 
 entering the dug-out, " but I hate awfully 
 to have you try it, Min! I'm afraid 
 you'll get lost, or freeze. You don't 
 know how cold it is and how thick the 
 snow is." 
 
 She was buttoning on some heavy 
 leggings. Mr. Jepson had been induced 
 by her to rest on the lounge. He was 
 moaning from the pain of his aching 
 
80 
 
 A HEBOINE OF THE PLAINS. 
 
 hands and feet and seemed more stupefied 
 than when he had come in. If he heard 
 their talk, he did not heed it. 
 
 " You do what you can to make him 
 comfortable," she said in low tones, with 
 a nod toward the lounge. " Don't let 
 him leave the house. Tell him I've 
 gone on, and that his children are all 
 right. And don't expect me back until 
 you see me. I shall not try to get back 
 until after the blizzard. And you must 
 stay right here, Walt! You will, won't 
 you? And don't venture to the stable 
 without the rope!" 
 
 Walt promised, then reluctantly got 
 down the heavy coat and the blizzard 
 mask. He also got her some wraps and 
 her warm mittens. 
 
 She looked hardly human when she 
 was ready for the journey. The black 
 oil-cloth mask, the big comforter about 
 her neck and ears, the thick badger-skin 
 overcoat, and the " arctic " overshoes, so 
 transformed and concealed her that her 
 most intimate friends could not have 
 recognized her. 
 
 " Good-by," she said, lifting her mask 
 and kissing him, as they stood together 
 in the tunnel between the two doors. 
 
 Then Walt lifted the outer door, that 
 " good-by " ringing unpleasantly in his 
 ears, and they were out in the storm. In 
 another minute she was in the driver's 
 seat and Walt was turning the horses. 
 She called " good-by " as the storm swal- 
 lowed her, and Walt stumbled back into 
 
 the dug-out with a foreboding ache in his 
 heart. 
 
 No one could have known better than 
 Minnie Dixon that she was facing death 
 in making this attempt to reach and 
 succor Jepson's children. The fury of a 
 true Western blizzard is scarcely to be 
 conceived by people accustomed only to 
 the so-called " blizzards " of the eastern', 
 and central states; but some may get an 
 idea of its terror by recalling the widely- 
 published account of how, a few years 
 ago, in a Dakota town, men with ropes 
 tied to them to secure their safety, groped 
 in the streets to find school children who 
 had been overtaken by a sudden blizzard 
 while on their way from school to their 
 homes. 
 
 Not even the wraps and the thick 
 badger-skin coat could wholly protect her 
 from the icy sting of the blast. The wind 
 tore at her sometimes as if it would snatch 
 her from the wagon seat. She could not 
 see the heads of the horses; could scarcely 
 see anything. Her breath congealed at 
 the openings in the mask until she had to 
 dig the icy flakes away with her mittened 
 hands. The horses floundered and 
 stumbled. They were benumbed, and 
 the snow was beginning to drift badly. 
 But they seemed to advance with such 
 confidence that her courage grew strong. 
 
 " It's only two miles," she thought. 
 " Two miles is no distance, on the plains, 
 and we've the storm at our backs to hurry 
 us on." 
 
A HEROINE OF THE PLAJNS. 81 
 
 The horses went fairly well for a She climbed stiffly out of the high seat, 
 time. Though they stumbled, they did got the near horse by the bit, and turned 
 not fall. Then Minnie 
 Dixon's heart seemed to 
 leap into her throat. 
 She discovered that the 
 wind, which had been 
 at her back, was com- 
 ing over her left shoul- 
 der. She tried to 
 fancy at first that this 
 might be caused by a 
 bend in the trail, but 
 when it continued she 
 knew it was not that. 
 
 "We must be out of 
 the trail!" she gasped. 
 " And if we're out of it 
 we'll never find it!" 
 
 She pulled on the 
 lines and the horses 
 stopped. They were 
 obedient, though bewil- 
 dered. The instinct by 
 which a horse is said to 
 know the way home 
 counts for little in a 
 blizzard. 
 
 " I must find the 
 fence," was her 
 thought. "It's bound 
 to be on the right. 
 The wind can't have 
 
 Her knock was answered by Jepson's oldest boy.— See page Ss2. 
 
 changed so suddenly, and if I keep it on the team in the direction she wanted to 
 my right side I'm sure to strike the fence, go, taking what she believed to be a south- 
 I hope we haven't gone far from it!" west course. A due west course gave the 
 
82 
 
 A EEB01NE OF TEE PLAINS. 
 
 blizzard a broadside sweep that was unen- 
 durable. 
 
 Minnie Dixon was badly frightened 
 before she reached the fence. It took her 
 so long a time that she began to think 
 that perhaps the wind had changed and 
 she was lost. What that meant she dared 
 not picture. No shipwrecked, drowning 
 mariner ever put hand on buoyant spar 
 with greater delight than that felt by her 
 when she stumbled against the fence. 
 
 "Oh, God! I thank thee!" she mur- 
 mured, from her overflowing heart. 
 
 She did not remount the seat. She 
 was afraid to. But with one hand on a 
 bridle bit and the other in touch with the 
 top wire, which tore her mittens and now 
 and then scratched her fingers, she 
 tramped sturdily southward, in what she 
 now confidently knew to be the right di- 
 rection. 
 
 "If this fence hadn't been here!" she 
 reflected, and the shudder that shook her 
 was not caused by a gust of the storm. 
 
 The chill began to go out of her blood 
 a little as she toiled on. She did not try 
 to keep the team in the trail. She could 
 not see the trail, because of the snow on 
 the ground and in the air. 
 
 The way seemed dreadfully long. She 
 was growing very tired, and was wonder- 
 ing how much farther she would have to 
 go, when she heard Jepson's dog bark, 
 and fairly stumbled against the north wall 
 of Jepson's stable, which was built quite 
 up to the cattle company's fence. 
 
 Feeling her way along the wall, she led 
 the team into the lee of the stable and up 
 to the stable door. Then she stumbled 
 through the drifts to the house, which, 
 fortunately, was only a few feet away, 
 and whose direction she knew. 
 
 Her knock was answered by Jepson's 
 oldest boy. He stared at her, wonder- 
 ingly. He was in stockinged feet, but 
 otherwise dressed. She saw he had just 
 crawled out of bed, and looking beyond 
 him she beheld the heads of the other 
 children peeping above the bed clothing. 
 They had crawled into bed because of the 
 cold and their terror of the storm. 
 
 "If I tie a rope round your waist can 
 you put the team in the stable?" she 
 asked of the boy as she entered. " The 
 horses are almost frozen, and I was afraid 
 you would be!" 
 
 The room was tireless and icy cold. 
 
 " We'll get the horses in the stable, 
 and then we'll have some of that coal out 
 of the wagon and start a fire," she said. 
 
 She took off the mask and unwound 
 the scarf from about her neck and ears. 
 Not till then did Billy Jepson know who 
 she was. 
 
 So severe was the blizzard that Minnie 
 Dixon was not able to return home for 
 three days. In fact, before she ventured 
 to leave Jepson's, Jepson appeared, his 
 anxiety having been so great that Walt 
 could not detain him after the storm 
 showed signs of abating. 
 
 "You're the grittiest and best woman 
 
FROM FOREST TO PRINTING-PRESS. 83 
 
 in these parts!" Jepson said to her, in his That was what Jepson said. The Web- 
 homely yet honest way. " I don't know ster City " Herald," which a week later 
 what my little tots would 've done if you made mention of her unselfish bravery, 
 hadn't risked it. 'Twould 've been awful spoke of her as " A Heroine of the 
 fer 'em, with nothin' to eat and no fire!" Plains." 
 
 From Forest to Printing -Press. 
 
 BY JOHN H. WHITSON. 
 
 "ID you ever consider 
 \ how full of interest 
 is the history of 
 the paper on which 
 these words are 
 printed? 
 
 There was a 
 time, not so very remote, when paper of 
 this kind was nearly all made of rags; 
 now it is almost wholly made of wood, 
 chiefly spruce and poplar. 
 
 The history of paper - making, from 
 those old, old days in Egypt when 
 papyrus leaves were used, down to the 
 paper-devouring present, would make an 
 interesting article of itself. Try to think 
 how it would be if we had no paper, and 
 then you will gain some idea of the im- 
 portance of paper to the people of this 
 age. Without paper, there would be few 
 books and very little learning. The 
 leaves of the few books would be made 
 chiefly, if not altogether, of the prepared 
 
 skins of animals. Even the Bible, as was 
 once the case, would be so expensive that 
 it would be only in the hands of the rich 
 or in churches chained to the pulpits. 
 The world would be filled with ignorance 
 and superstition, for without books there 
 cannot be great enlightenment. 
 
 The amount of paper used by a nation 
 is said to be a good guage of its intelli- 
 gence. You will be glad to know that 
 our own country, tested in this way, 
 stands very high. There are more than 
 a thousand paper mills in the United 
 States, and these turn out many, many 
 tons, for as a nation we are great paper- 
 users. 
 
 Fortunately for the paper-making in- 
 dustry the forests of spruce on this con- 
 tinent seem almost inexhaustible. The 
 principal area extends from upper New 
 England to Hudson Bay. Probably 
 more spruce comes from Maine than from 
 any other state, and most of this comes 
 
84 
 
 FROM FOREST TO PRINTING-PRESS. 
 
 from the region drained by the Penobscot 
 River. 
 
 If you will consult a good map of Maine 
 you will see that the northern part of the 
 state is a labyrinth of lakes and water- 
 ways. These lakes and streams are the 
 highways down which the spruce logs are 
 conveyed on their way to the paper mills. 
 The logs are cut during the cold winter 
 months, when the musical streams are 
 still and the snow lies deep in the forests. 
 The men who cut the logs pay the 
 owners of the forest at an agreed rate for 
 the standing trees. The measurement is 
 made after the logs have been floated 
 down, by a man who is called a " scaler." 
 He has a rule which he places across the 
 ends of the logs to ascertain their diam- 
 eter. He knows that a log of a certain 
 length and diameter contains a certain 
 number of feet of lumber; and when he 
 has made his measurements it is a simple 
 matter of calculation to tell how many 
 thousand feet of lumber there are in the 
 logs. 
 
 One of the first things the loggers must 
 do when they go into the woods to cut the 
 logs, is to erect shelters for themselves 
 and their teams. They select a dry spot, 
 near water, and build a house of logs. 
 The chinks, or crevices between the logs, 
 they fill with dry moss, to keep out the 
 wind and cold. Then they build a 
 stable, called a " hovel," for the horses. 
 
 When these shelters have been pre- 
 pared, a road for the teams and sleds is 
 
 cleared to the best timber, and the good 
 trees are marked, cut down and sawed into 
 logs, which the teams draw to the edge of 
 the frozen lake or river. Though the 
 weather is often very cold, there is not 
 much wind in the depths of the woods, so 
 the hardy loggers do not mind it. Noth- 
 ing but the severest storms stop the 
 work; and the " logging," as it is called, 
 continues through the entire winter. 
 
 With the opening of spring, arrange- 
 ments are made for floating the logs to 
 the sea or to some point on a railway. 
 This is called " driving," and it is at once 
 the most exciting, perilous and romantic 
 part of the work. No doubt you have 
 read of the dangers of taking logs down 
 rivers in this way, for many true tales are 
 given us which tell of the heroism of the 
 " river drivers " of Maine. It requires 
 strength, endurance and courage to be a 
 " river driver." 
 
 Owing to the length of the water high- 
 ways and the fact that the work in the 
 woods has been done by many different 
 parties of loggers, as a matter of system 
 and economy the streams down which logs 
 are to be floated are divided into sections 
 called " drives." A gang of men has 
 charge of each " drive." The care of the 
 descending logs in each is undertaken on 
 contract, and is let out to the lowest bid- 
 der at an auction sale which is held in 
 February. 
 
 The successful bidder, or contractor, 
 then files his bond for the faithful per- 
 
FBOM FOBEST TO P BIN TING- P BESS. 
 
 85 
 
 formanee of the work, gets together his 
 camp outfit and provisions, and hires his 
 " drivers," or men. You will get a good 
 idea of the importance of " river driving " 
 as a business, when I tell you that last 
 year nearly two thousand " drivers " were 
 employed on the drives of the Penobscot 
 and Connecticut rivers alone, and these 
 were not half of the " river drivers " of 
 New England. 
 
 When the snows are melting and the 
 streams are therefore the highest, the 
 drivers roll the logs into the water, start 
 them on their journey, keep them going, 
 and prevent and break " jams." Oftener 
 than not the men are wet and cold as a 
 result of their work, for a great deal of 
 wading is required and " duckings " by 
 falls in the slushy, icy water are frequent. 
 From the camp on shore, food is conveyed 
 to the men at work, in a boat called by the 
 Indian name of wangen, which is pro- 
 nounced " warnjen." With the coming 
 of night the logs are allowed to take care 
 of themselves and the men sleep at the 
 camp, with the possible exception of a 
 few who may be stationed at points where 
 jams are feared. 
 
 A lonelier task than this of standing all 
 night on the shore of some forest stream, 
 or knee-deep in the water, watching the 
 foam-flecked and almost invisible current, 
 ready with a pole to push off any threat- 
 ening log, can hardly be imagined. The 
 wind moans through the tops of the tall 
 trees, the stream roars by, the moon alter- 
 
 nately hides and reveals her face, and 
 from the heart of the great wilderness 
 comes perhaps the hooting of an owl or 
 the cry of lynx and wild-cat. 
 
 A log jam is the dread of the river 
 driver. A spruce log, which comes spin- 
 ning or floating down the current, will be 
 brought to a standstill by striking its ends 
 against the shore or against rocks. It 
 forms a barrier upon which other logs 
 quickly pile. In a short time there are 
 hundreds, perhaps thousands, of logs, 
 heaped and overlapped in confusion at 
 this point, filling the stream from bank to 
 bank; and to this still others are being 
 continually added. 
 
 To break the jam it is necessary to cut 
 or release the " key " log, the one which 
 has stopped and now holds back the 
 others. This is often so perilous a thing 
 to do that the men who attempt it take 
 their lives in their hands. Hundreds of 
 men have lost their lives in Maine, 
 crushed or drowned, while breaking log 
 jams. • < i 
 
 The one who volunteers for the work 
 crosses the dangerous heap of shaking 
 logs with an axe to cut the key log, or 
 with dynamite and fuse. There is less 
 risk in the use of dynamite, and in conse- 
 quence it is now much employed, thougli 
 it is destructive of logs. If the breaker of 
 the jam is to do it by cutting through the 
 key log, he makes a wild rush for the 
 shore as soon as that log begins to bend 
 and crack under the weight of the logs 
 
86 
 
 FROM FOREST TO PRINTING-PRESS. 
 
 pressing down on it from above. Often 
 the break comes suddenly, for the pres- 
 sure is enormous. In that event there is 
 an avalanche of logs and the man is in- 
 stantly killed. Sometimes; when the logs 
 start, their movement hurls him from his 
 feet, or the logs separate and drop him 
 into the stream. 
 
 So great is the danger that one would 
 think few men could be found to take the 
 risk, yet there are always plenty of volun- 
 teers for the work. If dynamite is used, 
 as soon as the fuse is lighted the jam- 
 breaker starts on a run for the shore. 
 The dynamite blows out the key log and 
 the jam is broken. 
 
 The logs are transported across lakes 
 and similar stretches of water in large 
 rafts held together by " booms," or logs 
 bound together. The rafts are warped 
 along, by fastening ropes to objects 
 ahead and drawing on the ropes, or, as in 
 the larger lakes, they are towed by small 
 steamers. The work is now so system- 
 atized that steamers are provided for most 
 of the lakes, many narrow places in the 
 rivers have been blasted and widened to 
 prevent the formation of jams, while 
 " booms," or barriers, have been placed in 
 crooked places, to divert the logs and keep 
 them from shooting out into the woods or 
 
 going ashore in marshes and at shallow 
 points. 
 
 When the logs reach the sea, the ship 
 landing or the railway station, they are 
 loaded on vessels or cars and conveyed to 
 the paper mills. Often they are bound 
 into large rafts, which are towed by 
 steamers to their destinations from the 
 mouths of the rivers. 
 
 On their arrival at the paper mills the 
 logs are first split and then chipped fine 
 by machinery. These chips are put into 
 tanks called " digesters," where they are 
 treated with sulphurous acid, under heat, 
 which destroys or eats out the cellular, 
 resinous matter, leaving only the fiber 
 of the wood. 
 
 This reduces the wood to a beautiful 
 white pulp, which is washed and screened 
 and variously treated; and which, finally, 
 after passing through presses and drying 
 rooms, comes out as you see it, paper. 
 
 It is sent to the big printing presses on 
 large ribbon-like rolls, ready for the appli- 
 cation of type and ink to make it into the 
 object you behold, giving you, through 
 the eyes, noble and good thoughts and 
 beautiful pictures. Is it not a romantic 
 and marvelous process, which thus takes 
 a tree from a far-off forest and makes of 
 it an engine of civilization? 
 
Why the Mills Were Started. 
 
 BY JOHN H. WH1TSON. 
 
 T was said that 
 Amasa Stone 
 had a heart as 
 flinty as his 
 name. Cer- 
 tainly the peo- 
 ple of Damaris- 
 cara had never 
 witnessed any exhibition of great gener- 
 osity on his part. Damariscara was a 
 New England cotton mill town. It was 
 not a large town, but its two cotton mills, 
 employing five or six hundred men, 
 women and children, produced such ex- 
 cellent muslin that its name was known 
 more widely than that of many a more 
 pretentious place. The blue stamp, 
 " Damariscara Mills," on a piece of mus- 
 lin, was everywhere accepted as a guar- 
 antee of the quality of the goods. 
 
 But the mills were now shut down, for 
 how long no one could say. The cotton 
 mill industry of New England was in a 
 depressed condition. Hence the mills 
 were idle and the mill hands out of work. 
 " Of course I oughtn't to expect people 
 to make bricks without straw," Amasa 
 Stone grumbled, as he took a turn about 
 his office, that bright June evening. " I 
 don't expect it, but I've got to protect my- 
 self. It's a dead loss to run the mills 
 
 now — will be for several months, and 
 the people are hard pressed. But I must 
 collect my rents. I can't be expected to 
 keep a horde of folks in my houses free 
 of charge. That's asking entirely too 
 much. Those that can't pay will have 
 to go out and let others come in that will 
 pay. I don't see any other way to do." 
 
 He took another turn about the room. 
 He was a tall man, rather stern, and with 
 deep gray eyes. His hair and beard 
 were beginning to whiten, but he was still 
 erect and sturdy. He seemed to be, as 
 he was, a man of strength and purpose; 
 a man of sufficient force to become an 
 instrument of great good or of great evil. 
 
 Amasa Stone's self - communing and 
 the arguments he used showed that his 
 heart was not entirely flint. One with a 
 heart so hard does not seek to justify 
 himself. 
 
 After a little he put on his hat and 
 went out into the street. The lights 
 were twinkling in the houses, the stars 
 were shining, the air was sweet and cool. 
 In the valley below was the tenement 
 district, where lived the operatives, al- 
 most within the shadows of the tall 
 smoke-stacks that towered above the 
 mills. 
 
 " If Thorndyke hasn't the money to- 
 
 87 
 
S8 
 
 WHY TEE MILLS WERE STARTED. 
 
 night I sha'n't wait on him any longer," 
 was his thought, as he turned in the direc- 
 tion of the tenements. " That family 
 from Androscoggin will take the house, 
 and what's more, they'll ^pay the rent. 
 Of course, I'm sorry for Thorndyke, but 
 that's no reason I should support him. 
 There'll be no call for him to suffer, 
 even if he does go out of the house." 
 
 The selectmen of the town, aided by 
 charitable people, had opened a soup 
 house for such as were in actual need, 
 and then there was the poor - farm for 
 those wdio had no shelter. Being one of 
 the heaviest tax-payers, Stone felt that it 
 was largely his money that the selectmen 
 were using and with which the county 
 paid the expenses of the poor-farm. He 
 told himself that, though Jack Thorn- 
 dyke was a good weaver and had always 
 met his bills when he had work, he was 
 no more entitled to sympathy than others 
 who had been forced to accept such 
 charity. 
 
 " I don't want to turn him out, but if 
 I make an exception in his case I'll have 
 to in others, and where will it end?" 
 Stone reflected. " I really hope he re- 
 ceived that money he was expecting from 
 his sister in the West, though I don't 
 suppose he has." 
 
 He buttoned his coat about him, as he 
 walked on in that beautiful June evening, 
 as if he had buttoned further argument 
 out of his heart. 
 
 The Thorndyke cottage was tiny, but 
 
 it had a home-like, cozy look. It had 
 not been built for a tenement, but for a 
 home, by a poor man, who had been 
 forced to give it up. Thorndyke's wife 
 was dead these two years now, but he 
 still tried to keep the house as she would 
 like it, and to keep in the yard and the 
 windows the flowers she had loved. 
 
 One of the windows was open, and a 
 canary — Mrs. Thorndyke's canary — 
 cheered by the lamp, was trilling joy- 
 ously, as Amasa Stone passed up the nar- 
 row, flower-bordered walk. 
 
 " For a man in Thorndyke's circum- 
 stances, that's what I call extravagance," 
 he thought, further hardening his heart. 
 " Why does he keep that bird ? And the 
 time he spends fooling with these flowers 
 might bring him money, if he'd use it in 
 work in other people's yards or gardens!" 
 
 He stopped. A child's voice had 
 reached him, the voice of Edith Thorn- 
 dyke. Stone had often seen her and ad- 
 mired her. She was Jake Thorndyke's 
 only child, sweet-faced and grave-eyed — 
 not pretty, but attractive simply because 
 she seemed such a modest, earnest little 
 body. 
 
 Through the open window he now saw 
 the child, in white night robe, kneeling 
 beside her bed. Near her Thorndyke sat 
 on a chair. 
 
 " You haven't read any verses to-night, 
 papa," Stone heard her say, and saw her 
 lift her head. " I was 'bout to forget 
 it." 
 
WHY THE MILLS WERE STARTED. 
 
 89 
 
 She half arose, and Thorndyke, as if 
 reproved, shifted uneasily and put out 
 his hand for the Bible on the stand 
 close by. 
 
 Amasa Stone could not have told why 
 he did it, but he 
 moved a step nearer 
 and stood still. 
 
 " Let not your 
 heart be troubled," 
 read Thorndyke. 
 " Ye believe in God, 
 believe also in me. 
 In my Father's 
 house are many man- 
 sions. If it were 
 not so, I would have 
 told you." 
 
 Though a good 
 weaver, Thorndyke 
 was not a good 
 reader. He read 
 poorly and without 
 inflection, but the 
 air of the man was 
 sincerity itself. 
 
 " Now kiss me again, papa!" said the 
 child, lifting her face toward him; and 
 Thorndyke, putting down the book, rose 
 heavily from the chair and kissed her, 
 then stood beside her as she said her 
 prayer — " Now I lay me down to 
 sleep," and ended with the petition, 
 " Dear Jesus, bless papa, bless everybody. 
 Amen." 
 
 It was only a child repeating words 
 
 that had been taught her, without per- 
 haps fully comprehending all that the 
 words meant, but it touched Amasa Stone 
 as nothing had touched him in years. 
 He had said that prayer, without the final 
 
 Through the open window he now saw the child. — See page 83. 
 
 sentence, however, at his mother's knee, 
 when he was a little boy. 
 
 Tears were in the eyes of Amasa 
 Stone, whose heart many men believed 
 to be as hard as flint. 
 
 He did not move until the child was in 
 bed, with the covers tucked lovingly 
 about her by her father's toil - worn 
 hands. 
 
 Then Amasa Stone felt in his pockets, 
 
90 
 
 THE INDIAN CADMUS. 
 
 with fingers that trembled. When they 
 <:ame out, they held a pencil, a little pad 
 cf paper and a ten - dollar bill. He 
 scribbled a few words on a sheet of the 
 paper, pinned it to the bill, and, stepping 
 softly to the window, dropped the bill to 
 the floor, where it was found in the 
 morning. On the sheet of paper was 
 written: 
 
 " Mr. Amasa Stone's present to Miss Edith 
 Thorndyke, who prays that Jesus may bless 
 everybody." 
 
 At a meeting of the stockholders the 
 next day Mr. Stone astonished the other 
 members of the association by rising in 
 his place and saying: 
 
 reached this conclusion by being seriously 
 led to reflect on the condition of the mill 
 hands. Therefore, I move you, Mr. Presi- 
 dent, that the mills be started again next 
 Monday, for the benefit of the town, if 
 we gain no benefit ourselves. No doubt 
 there will be loss, but I'm sure none of us 
 will be made much poorer because of 
 that." 
 
 The motion was promptly seconded by 
 Judge Hillyer, who had advocated this 
 policy from the first; and then Amasa 
 Stone supported his own motion in a 
 speech which was so convincing that it 
 carried the day. 
 
 " I was influenced by a little child," 
 
 " I have come to the conclusion that we said Stone, speaking of it long afterward; 
 
 are making a mistake by not running our " a little child that led me to see my true 
 
 mills, even if the times are hard and no relations to my fellow-men, and later my 
 
 money to be made at present; and I have true relations to God." 
 
 The Indian Cadmus. 
 
 BY JOHN H. WH1TSON. 
 
 HAT rugged, exclamatory 
 writer, Thomas Carlyle, 
 called down " blessings 
 on the head of Cadmus, the 
 Phoenicians, or whoever it 
 was that invented books." 
 It is well known now that neither Cad- 
 mus nor the Phoenicians " invented " 
 
 books or an alphabet; the alphabet more 
 particularly — that is, our alphabet — 
 "just growed," like Topsy. 
 
 So far as known, only two men ever 
 actually " invented " an alphabet. One 
 of these was George Psalmanazer, a noted 
 impostor of the last century, who claimed 
 to have discovered a singular race of peo- 
 
pie on the island of Formosa. To bolster 
 his claim, Psalmanazer went to the vast 
 trouble of inventing a language and an 
 alphabet, which he claimed these people 
 used. The other " inventor " of an al- 
 phabet was a Cherokee Indian named 
 
 THE INDIAN CADMUS. 91 
 
 one who thinks he can do little or nothing 
 because of limited opportunities. 
 The " talking leaf : 
 
 of the white man 
 
 Sequoyah, who has been called the Indian 
 Cadmus; and the story of his remarkable 
 achievement under great difficulty ought 
 to be helpful and encouraging to every 
 
 has been a wonder of 
 all ignorant peoples. 
 Usually the savage 
 thinks the paper, or 
 "leaf," has intelli- 
 gence, as in the mis- 
 sionary's story. The 
 missionary sent some fruit, bananas per- 
 haps, to a relative or friend by the hand of 
 a native, accompanying the present with 
 a note setting forth the fact and the 
 number of bananas sent. On the way 
 the native ate one of the bananas, and 
 
92 
 
 was astounded to find that the "talking 
 leaf " told on him. When he was sent 
 again with bananas and a note he sat on 
 the note while he ate one of the bananas, 
 thinking in that way to keep the note 
 from seeing the theft, and was more than 
 astounded when the note again told on 
 him. 
 
 The white man's writing was quite as 
 much of a mystery to that portion of the 
 Cherokee nation residing in Alabama, in 
 the early part of this century, with whom 
 Sequoyah lived. One day some young 
 Cherokees were discussing the superior 
 intelligence of the white man, when one 
 spoke of the white man's ability to put 
 a " talk " on a piece of paper, send it a 
 long distance and acquaint the receiver 
 with what was in the sender's mind. 
 
 This was not news to Sequoyah. He 
 had observed and deeply pondered the 
 wonder. 
 
 " I can do the same," he jestingly de- 
 clared, taking up a flat stone and scratch- 
 ing various marks on it. 
 
 Then he pretended to read the marks; 
 and the thought flashed on him that here 
 was the secret — the making of a sign for 
 a word. 
 
 The subject took such strong hold on 
 him that he could think of little else. 
 He began to work on a vast alphabet 
 which should have a sign for every word 
 in the Cherokee language. His letters 
 were pictorial and ideographic, not true 
 letters, but signs and pictures represent- 
 
 THE INDIAN CADMUS. 
 
 ing objects and ideas. They multiplied 
 until they became unmanageable. He 
 soon found that there would be so many 
 that no one could be expected to remem- 
 ber them. He could not remember them 
 himself. 
 
 Though forced to admit a temporary 
 defeat he did not despair, but gave him- 
 self even more completely to his task. He 
 studied the sounds made in speaking and 
 the cries of birds and animals. He 
 neglected his farming and his work. 
 Many of his friends thought he was 
 crazy, or would soon become so. But 
 none of these things, not even the old 
 Cherokee tradition constantly dinned into 
 his ears, could turn him from his pur- 
 pose. 
 
 This tradition concerned the creation. 
 It stated that in the Leginning the Great 
 Father made the red man and the white 
 man, the red man first. He gave to the 
 red man the choicest gift, a book, and to 
 the white man a bow and arrows. The 
 red man was not attentive to the book 
 and the' white man stole it away from 
 him, leaving the bow and arrows in its 
 place. The red man had thus lost his 
 birthright, which it was impossible for 
 him to regain. 
 
 At last Sequoyah hit on the idea 
 which he carried to success. He discov- 
 ered that words are composed of syllabic 
 sounds and that a great many words 
 have sounds in common. After a long 
 time he reduced the Cherokee tongue to 
 
THE INDIAN CADMUS. 
 
 93 
 
 eighty -five elementary sounds and in- 
 vented or adopted a character for each 
 sound. 
 
 Thus the Cherokee alphabet has eighty- 
 five letters, instead of twenty-six, but 
 Cherokee writing is phonetic, and for that 
 reason much more readily learned than 
 ours. It is seriously claimed that a 
 bright Cherokee boy can learn to read and 
 write his mother tongue, with Sequoyah's 
 alphabet, in less time than a week. 
 
 Even after he had achieved this suc- 
 cess, which he did somewhat as Milton 
 wrote " Paradise Lost," with the help — 
 sometimes the unwilling help — of the 
 female members of his family, Sequoyah 
 could not get a hearing from the leaders 
 of his people, who were chained to their 
 ignorance by that old legend. There- 
 upon Sequoyah left Alabama and went to 
 another portion of the tribe, that dwelt 
 on White Eiver, in Arkansas. There he 
 had better success. Still, only the in- 
 ferior rank of Indians gave him heed at 
 first and sought to acquire his wonderful 
 art. 
 
 Does it not seem strange that all great 
 movements begin at the bottom and work 
 up? We are told that when the Scribes 
 
 and Pharisees rejected Jesus, "the com- 
 mon people heard him gladly." AH 
 earnest minds have had Sequoyah's fight 
 and Sequoyah's faith. Nothing could 
 daunt them. In spite of opposition and 
 sneers, in spite of paralyzing persecution, 
 in spite of everything, they followed the 
 light and the truth, like Luther sum- 
 moned before the Diet of Worms, though 
 every tile on the housetops was an angry 
 or a sneering devil. The world needs 
 men and women, boys and girls, who be- 
 lieve something and are willing to make 
 sacrifice for their belief. 
 
 Sequoyah triumphed in the end, as 
 every sturdy toiler must do. The Chero- 
 kee legislature finally voted money for a 
 printing press and type and the " Chero- 
 kee Advocate " was started. It is still 
 run, printed one-half in Cherokee and 
 one-half in English. 
 
 Sequoyah's invention made the Chero- 
 kees the most intelligent and the best 
 educated of the Indian tribes. Nor is he 
 forgotten by them. In the Cherokee 
 capitol at Tahlequah has been placed his 
 bust, by Vinnie Keam, to remind the be- 
 holder of what the Indian Cadmus did 
 for his people. 
 
Whistling Johnny. 
 
 BY JOHN H. WHITSON. 
 
 DECLAEE! that boy 
 will make me crazy with 
 his noise and whistling!" 
 said Aunt Sue, lifting 
 the egg-beater out of the 
 frothy yellow mass in 
 the bowl and wrinkling 
 her usually pleasant forehead in a frown. 
 "I can't tell you how he tries me!" 
 
 A healthy boy of twelve or fourteen 
 had hurried through the hall, giving the 
 door a bang, and had gone loudly whist- 
 ling across the porch. 
 
 A smile, that had a reminiscent tinge 
 of sadness in it, came to Grandma Per- 
 kins' face. 
 
 " Do you know, I like to hear him 
 whistle," she softly said, puckering her 
 apron with her thin fingers. " You may 
 be sure, for one thing, that his heart is 
 light, and a light, care-free heart is 
 worth having in this world. Besides, 
 when a boy is whistling, you can know 
 he's not into any mischief. If a boy is 
 doing wrong he doesn't go about it so 
 merrily." 
 
 " I believe you've taken a great fancy 
 to Jim," observed Aunt Sue, as she re- 
 commenced whirling the egg-beater. 
 
 The tone was almost as gentle as 
 grandma's. Perhaps that was because 
 
 grandma's wistful manner and soft voice 
 had called up a vision of Jim's mother 
 just as she was in the long ago, when, as 
 sisters, she and Aunt Sue had come up to 
 young womanhood together, with the sun- 
 light of gladness and the beauty of pure 
 hearts and good health in their faces. 
 Jim's mother had gone but a little dis- 
 tance on the pathway of life before she 
 wearied and gave up its burden, leaving 
 to other hands the task of rearing and 
 training her baby boy. 
 
 " He makes me think of Johnny 
 Lathrop," grandma musingly continued. 
 (Grandma Perkins was everybody's grand- 
 ma, and always the gentle defender of the 
 boys and girls wherever she went.) " We 
 called him Whistling Johnny. Every- 
 body called him that. And if ever a 
 name fitted anybody, that fitted him. He 
 whistled continually, at work and at play. 
 And he could whistle like a bird. It was 
 a pleasure to me just to listen to him, for 
 when he puckered his lips and began to 
 whistle, real music came out. I remem- 
 ber when he forgot and began to whistle 
 in school, one time. Of course the 
 scholars all laughed, and he received a 
 reprimand. His mother told that she 
 once heard him whistling in the night, 
 and she was sure he did it while he was 
 
WHISTLING JOHNNY. 
 
 95 
 
 dreaming. Ah, me!" sighed grandma, 
 while the wistful light deepened in her 
 sweet brown eyes. " That was a long, 
 long time ago, though it doesn't really 
 seem it!" 
 
 Aunt Sue stopped her egg-beating to 
 inspect a pie in the oven. 
 
 " I didn't ever think, then, how glad 
 I'd be to hear that whistle, some day," 
 grandma continued, after it seemed she 
 was going to leave the story unfinished 
 and wander off into a reminiscent day 
 dream. "No, that I didn't. I'd been 
 down on the ridge, picking blackberries, 
 that day. Seems to me I can see and 
 taste those berries and feel the scratches 
 of the vines yet. I suppose the reason I 
 remember everything so distinctly is be- 
 cause of the accident, and because of the 
 little green snake lying on the briars, 
 that I almost put my hand on before I 
 saw it. 
 
 " Well, that startled me a good deal, 
 and I decided that I wouldn't pick any 
 more berries there, but would go over 
 to an old house, where there was a 
 well, and eat my dinner. I had my din- 
 ner in a little tin pail, that I intended to 
 fill with berries when I had emptied it of 
 food. 
 
 " So I walked across the field, letting 
 my sunbonnet swing at the back of my 
 neck by its strings, for my face and head 
 were hot and I wanted to get all the good 
 I could of the breeze. It was about noon, 
 I thought, by the looks of the sun. 
 
 Everything was very still, with the ex- 
 ception of the locusts that were making a 
 noise in the tree-tops. 
 
 " No one had lived in the house for 
 some time. The front door was off its 
 hinges and lying in the weedy yard. I 
 put my dinner and my berry pail down on 
 this door and hurried to the well to draw 
 some water, for I was very thirsty, as 
 well as warm. I don't know just how it 
 happened, but when I reached up to take 
 hold of the pole of the old-fashioned 
 well - sweep, I slipped and fell into the 
 well." Grandma closed her eyes, as that 
 old fright came on her again. 
 
 " You must have been dreadfully hurt, 
 or nearly drowned?" questioned Aunt Sue, 
 lifting the egg-beater. 
 
 " No, I wasn't hurt a bit, but you may 
 be sure I was dreadfully scared. For- 
 tunately, the well wasn't very deep, and 
 I went down feet foremost. I fully ex- 
 pected to drown; but when I scrambled 
 up, almost scared to death, I found that 
 the water only rose to a little above my 
 knees. It was cold, though, almost icy 
 cold, and I began to chill and my teeth 
 to chatter at once. I didn't know what 
 to do but to call for help, and I called till 
 I could hardly stand. I should have died 
 there, I suppose, if Whistling Johnny 
 hadn't come along. He was on his way 
 to the berry patch, and of course he was 
 whistling. As soon as I heard him I be- 
 gan to shout and scream again. The 
 whistling stopped, so I knew he heard 
 
96 WHISTLING 
 
 me. I kept on calling, and finally, 
 guided by my voice, he came up to the 
 well and looked in. He was dreadfully 
 alarmed when he saw me in there. 
 
 " ' Do you suppose you could get me 
 out, Johnny?' I asked. ' I shall die in 
 here, if you don't, or if you can't bring 
 me help soon. You couldn't pull me out 
 with the sweep, could you?' 
 
 " Johnny looked at me and at the 
 sweep, then scratched his head. ' I tell 
 you what,' he said, ' I can try.' 
 
 " I didn't know, then, the plan that 
 had popped into his mind, and though I 
 was so anxious for him to try, I really 
 doubted his ability, with all the help I 
 could give him, for you see he was only a 
 boy, though heavy and strong for his 
 years. He began to whistle, and the next 
 minute he sent down the bucket. ' Get 
 into that,' he called, ' while I shin up the 
 big pole. And be sure you hold on good 
 and tight when she begins to lift, and 
 don't you wiggle round any.' Then he 
 ran away, and I felt the jar, as he began 
 to climb the big pole to the fork in which 
 the sweep rested. The long arm of the 
 sweep was pivoted in that fork, you 
 know, so that its ends would move up and 
 down like a see-saw. A minute or so 
 later he called: 'All ready! Are you 
 all ready?' I was in the bucket and 
 
 JOHNNY. 
 
 clinging tremblingly to the little pole 
 that served as the bucket rope. I told 
 him I was ready, though I still hardly 
 understood his plan. Then the little 
 pole, to which I clung, jarred again. He 
 was hitching back along the high arm of 
 the sweep. He was forced to hitch to its 
 extreme end before his weight was suf- 
 ficient to lift me. Then the bucket be- 
 gan to rise. ' She's comin'!' I heard him 
 screech; and then he began to whistle 
 again, as his snd of the long sweep went 
 down and mine went up. It did not take 
 me long to reach the top of the well, wet 
 and chilled, but safe and sound. I 
 scrambled out of the bucket as quick as I 
 could, letting Johnny's end of the sweep 
 go ' chug "' to the ground. But as the 
 drop was only a foot or so, the fall did not 
 hurt him. ' Worked it slick as a whistle!' 
 he said, exultantly. And then, as if that 
 made him recollect something he'd for- 
 gotten, he puckered his lips and became 
 again Whistling Johnny. 
 
 " So you see why it is I like to hear 
 boys whistle," grandma concluded. "Let 
 them whistle, just as the birds do. The 
 time comes soon enough, usually, when 
 they quit it of themselves. But I've 
 found out by experience that a boy can do 
 a good piece of work and whistle while 
 doing it." 
 
J 
 

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