atmosphere mysteriously cleared. Weston was there, his face still flushed with excitement, but exhibiting a considerate deference to her that contrasted oddly with his former indifferent kindness, and confused the little woman's mind. Her father, too, seemed cowed and subdued, and addressed her in a tender and apologetic tone that was quite new to him and sat awkwardly upon him. He even forgot to find fault with Miss Agatha because the Sunday-school was late in being dismissed, or to fret over his luncheon that day.

"Agatha," said Weston, after that simple repast was finished, "I want you to take me for a walk this afternoon!" It was in Miss Agatha's mind to plead the shabbiness of her gown, but she only said, mildly:

"To the Park? Or perhaps you would like to take the cars out to the Beach? People are fond of going there on Sunday."

"No, no!" said Weston impatiently, for he too was somewhat spoiled by having his own way for so many years. "There are parks and beaches everywhere; and the same sort of people always frequent them. Take me to some out-of-the-way quarter. Show me a bit of life characteristic of San Francisco."

"We might go to where Guiseppe lives," suggested Miss Agatha timidly. "I took his address once.' "And Guiseppe?"

"Is only my ashman. But he is different from the rest, you know. He was a soldier under Garibaldi. And he has a wife and children that he thinks the world of ;—all the more because so many babies have died! I think it will be really very interesting to go there." "That will suit me exactly," said Weston gallantly. "Let us set off at once for the home of the soldier under Garibaldi."

Two weeks before, a man and a half

grown boy might have been seen toiling side by side along that nauseating portion of the banks of Mission Creek known as The Dumps. The man had a long rake with which he turned over the reeking deposits, stooping every moment or so to fling a bone to the right or to toss a rag to the left; to hurl a decaying carcass on the pile behind him, or a shining tin can on the pile before him. The boy took the debris left after this peculiar process of assortment had been gone through with, examining every lump and scrap minutely, sometimes bringing forth a broken toy or bit of crockery, which he hailed with childish delight, sometimes making a "find" which earned for him his father's commendation.

A cry of unusual excitement from the lad arrested the father's attention. "What you getta dis time, Joe?" he asked.

Guiseppe's son and heir had been named after him, but the name had been Americanized into this homely appellation.

"A ring, lady's ring! See! By Jiminy, dad, ain't it a beauty? It'll fetch a pretty figure."

And there in the mess of garbage, imbedded in the very boiled potato peelings into which it had been shaken from he wainscoting, lay Miss Agatha's ring, the great pearl shining with as pure a luster as when it last left her finger.

My, but ain't it scrumptious!" shouted Joe, sticking it on his dirty little finger, and dancing about with his hand in the air. "Come now, dad! Will you go shares? 'Cause if you won't!". and Joe, instinct with all the native deviltry of the little San Francisco hoodlum, made a feint of running off and escaping to some safe place, where he could enjoy his booty undisturbed.

"Joe, I say! Give her me dissa minute. Me know the lady what own her. Me see it many time on she litta finga. Joe, you rasca'!"

But Joe still held the bauble safely out of his father's reach. He assumed an injured tone, appealing to the latter in his paternal and conjugal capacity.

"Stuff, dad! An' little 'Gelica sick, an' no money to buy medicine. Just let mamma see it once! My land-she'll let it go, won't she!"

"Joe!" pleaded his father in a tone wherein command and entreaty were so blended that the boy almost involuntarily released his hold upon his treasure, regretting the concession when it was too late.

Both Guiseppe and Joe knew very well that if once the weak-principled, slatternly woman got sight of the bauble, no power of theirs could stay her from obtaining possession of it and keeping it.

Nevertheless the words of his son sank deep into Guiseppe's heart. Little Angelica was rapidly failing. Guiseppe's one hope was in getting her to a physician, famous among his people by reason of some cures he had effected, but whose large fee was altogether beyond the scavenger's humble means. The price of the ring he held in his hand would purchase the great doctor's help.

Guiseppe knew only too well the cause of the row of little graves in the graveyard at the foot of Lone Mountain. Many and many a night he had seen the noisome vapors arise from the steaming dump heaps, a phalanx of ghostly shapes, advancing upon his little dwelling, clutching at it with skeleton fingers, bending over it to stifle the sleepers in its suffocating breath. One by one the little ones had yielded to the malarial vapors. He had hoped to lay by enough to move into wholesome country air, but he could not make a beginning. There were so many funerals. Always a new baby each year, and last year's baby to be buried, and masses to be said for the salvation of its innocent little soul.

There is small doubt that the wonderful physician in whom Guiseppe so blindly believed was a notable quack; but what

wonder that the poor father, halting between his agonized desire for medical aid and his ill-sustained ideas of honor, deferred taking any active steps toward restoring the jewel? It was a relief to him that Miss Agatha had been busy, and he had not seen her on the two Saturdays that followed. When he saw her coming towards him that Sabbath day, it was as if his conscience were advancing upon him and calling him to account.

Miss Agatha's walk with her cousin. along the tide-laved banks of Mission Creek had been an endless procession of horrors. She shrank from the repulsive smells and sights, from the squalid homes and their degraded inhabitants. Long before they came in sight of Gui. seppe's dilapidated cabin she had given up all hope of finding the tidy cottage she had pictured, and was quite prepared for the sight of the petulant, slatternly woman with the dirty, wailing baby in her arms, for the saucy, ragged boy, the wretched home, with its stable-like furnishings, and even for the appearance of Guiseppe himself, dirtier and sadder than on week days, coming up from The Dumps to greet them.

"Yes, I gotta her, Miss Gatta," he said without preliminary or questioning. "My boy Joe he finda her two week. I no see you dissa Sattaday, no see you odda Sattaday, else I give her you befo'."

While he spoke he fumbled in the open throat of his scarlet shirt, bringing to view a somewhat greasy-looking leather case, with whose clasp he was working.

you what done die an' getta bury lika my bambinos."

The clasp yielded at last to his touch, and he held out something to Miss Agatha. It was the pearl ring. "My ring! O Guiseppe!"

A deep flush spread over the little lady's face, but somehow another hand received the ring, and into Guiseppe's hand were pressed some large gold coins that set the simple fellow's heart aglow. More by far than he could have hoped to realize from the sale of the jewel! More than enough to pay the great doctor's fee; enough, it was possible, to move the little family, bag and baggage, to a place in the country far from the noisome vapors.

"It was very good of you, Guiseppe, - very honest, to remember and give the ring back to me," stammered Miss Agatha.

The doubts and conflict of two weeks were things of the past, and Guiseppe's self-respect was restored. He touched his tattered hat, and drew himself erect with the old military gesture.

“Madam, a man what has been soljah under Garybaldy neva fo'get the word honah."

"Bravely said, Guiseppe," said Weston, speaking for the first time; but he laid his hand on Miss Agatha's arm, to draw her away from the ill-smelling place.

The two visitors walked slowly away from the forlorn little home. Miss Agatha's face was downcast, and her eyes sought the ground. In her cry of joy at the recovery of her lost treasure, she felt that she had been guilty of the most shameless self-betrayal. She could never, never look Weston in the face again. She wished that he would leave her now. She should be glad to hear that he was, to go away from the city tomorrow, placing miles and miles of distance between them. If only she could hide her burning cheeks and shamed eyes in the darkness and solitude of her own little room!

Weston was thoughtful and silent. The hand that he had placed upon Miss Agatha's arm was now lending it a gentle support, almost like a caress. The other hand was fingering the ring in his vest pocket. All the man in him, and what was left of the gallant, chivalrous boy of twenty years gone by, had been stirred by the evidence of simple, unwavering faith that had been so unexpectedly presented to him. Why should he stop to consider how far his limited income, never quite sufficient for his own tastes, would go in the support of three, when this little woman's narrow stipend had made two people comfortable and enabled her to do gracious little acts of charity besides? It was time his lazy, luxurious life came to an end. Already he had dreamed and idled away the best years of his life, while sheshe

"And you kept it — kept it and wore it all these years!"

Miss Agatha made no reply, while her head drooped even lower. Why should he make capital of her humiliation? Jt was a sorry jest for her. If she could but sink into the earth! or if only some spark of her old girlish spirit could revive, to rebuke him as he deserved! And why was he leading her away from the squalid dwellings, off from the settled portion of the wretched little hollow, to where the earth was carpeted with the glad green verdancy of January, and golden wild pansies, like fallen stars, were trampled beneath their feet? Yet the habit of submission was so strong upon her that she followed unquestioningly where he led.

Together they climbed a little sunbathed knoll, and he drew her down beside him. Then he took her delicate, thin hand in his, and he held the pearl ring over the finger that still bore its mark upon it.

"Agatha," he said gently, "may I put it on again, to mean more than ever it did before?"

TWENTY years ago the whole of western Kansas, and far beyond the Colorado line, was a wilderness of hills and plains, hay-colored buffalo grass, and miniature valleys, which were known as buffalo wallows, because they were made by bison (mistakenly called buffalo), where these animals curried their backs by kicking at the clouds.

These broad plains were inhabited not alone by bison, but also by wild horses, antelopes, coyotes, and lesser game, together with Arapahoe, Cheyenne and Sioux Indians. In the fall, too, the Utes would venture down from their higher lying stamping grounds for fall hunting; and then occurred wars, as the plains Indians regarded the Utes as trespassers upon reserved lands.

The Kansas Pacific railroad was then being built through the heart of this unsettled country, and in the summer of '69 the town of Phil Sheridan was the terminus of the road, while the building was going on beyond to where the town Kit Carson was surveyed for the next terminus.

In the month of September a party of bison hunters left Sheridan for a few

days' sport at Cheyenne Wells, a point lying to the west, and my friend Mrs. Baker and I, and little Ida Baker, aged nine, took one of our teams from its labors on the grade-scraper, that we might join the company and become initiated into the mysteries of hunting game more formidable than any we had before pursued.

The ten men had a dozen horses and two heavy wagons to carry the fresh meat and hides-that were yet enjoying life and sensibility; and we three followed in a light wagon drawn by one span of mules.

Our goal was a deserted station, but the wells, or holes, were still there, and we camped beside them for our needed water. Bison were literally swarming over the hills to the north, and away on the plains south, where by the careless observer they might well be taken for groves of trees.

The morning following our arrival was full of clouds and gloom. A fog, uncommon to that region, hung over the earth, and those of us who were novices as bison hunters expected a day of enforced idleness. We prophesied

falsely the wise ones proposed a "still hunt," so, gun in hand, we strung out in a line, facing north, number two keeping sight of number one, and number three keeping trace of number two, and so on to the end of the skirmish line.

Thus we marched for a long time through the fog, finally crossing the brow of a hill, where we bolted up against a half dozen grazing bison. We were almost near enough to take them by the horns, and by the magnifying effect of the fog they looked like mammoths with the heads and manes of lions.

My breast heaved while I stood looking at the monster before me. I had a fear that he might lift that massive head, and swallow me the next moment. We had crept upon them unseen and unseeing, and unheard as well. Nothing but the deep breathing and the grinding of the ponderous jaws broke the stillness of the fog surrounding us. I felt that I must sink into the earth for safety. I wanted to scream, but dared not. It was my first participation in a bison hunt, and I realized that meeting the imaginary bison on foot was much less disturbing to one's composure than the meeting with one in flesh and blood at so close a range. I dared not retreat, feeling that there were bison all around

me.

Regardless of orders, I ran to the gentleman at my left, and as I did so, I heard a rambling discharge of muskets, carbines, Winchester rifles, shotguns, horse-pistols, and pop-guns. At least I thought I did; and I must have heard something, as the furious fusilade "corralled" a fine four-year-old cow. Some stray bullet had gone to her heart, and we gathered around to inspect our trophy.

Women are cowards, and unwilling liars, and so I said nothing, but as I stood there gazing upon the victim of our fiendish sport, while she lay struggling in her death agonies, I felt ashamed of the human heart that can

tolerate a desire to slaughter anything, great or small.

The moment the volley was fired the herd fled in alarm, few or many of the bison wounded, perhaps to linger weeks or months to a final death, perhaps to suffer blindness and await death for want of water. I felt that we deserved retribution from the whole force, even for our sneaking attack upon the one harmless animal grazing unsuspectingly in her own field. What right had we to complain of the raids made and murders committed by the savages, we who were but savages ourselves?

The gentlemen were gracious to us, as we stood in a huddle around the dead, commenting on the work done. Not wishing to share in the firing, my friend and I had only taken our revolvers, and we were told with more or less assumed seriousness that the deadly missile had been sent by one of our two pepperboxes.

While the dressing was being done, I turned my back upon the company I dared not leave ; and in a little while we returned to camp, each of the men carrying on his shoulders a burden as bloody as the freshly-taken human scalp dangling at the warrior's belt.

After a feast on fresh meat cooked in every conceivable style, as only Mrs. Baker could prepare it, the still hunt was continued throughout the day, the party dividing up into small squads, and going into different ravines, where they found sufficiently large washed out holes in which to lie in ambush, awaiting the bison as they moved up on the windward side. The bison hunter takes this precaution when convenient, as the bison, no less than many smaller kinds of game, has a keen scent to warn him. of lurking danger, and so when not approached from the leeward, if he has been hunted much, he may be off in a twinkling.

And yet I have often been astonished at the bison's tameness. While passing