gry and thirsty, and tired of his post of honor, and disgusted with himself for the miserable mistakes he had made that morning.

He had been standing there like a forlorn and lonesome cock all the morning on one foot, waiting for the dawn, and now he fairly wanted to crow at the sight of it.

Then he sifted it all over again, and began to conclude, even after he had got pretty well thawed out, that he was not so far wrong, after all, for if Sandy had not split his foot open he had, anyhow, split his head, or else he would have come out of the house long ago.

Limber Tim now told the same story right straight through; how it happened, how Bunker Hill was "kivered" with blood, and all about it, even to the most minute detail: for certainly, thought he to himself, it is Sandy, or Sandy would have come out long ago. He even believed it so firmly, that he began to be sorry for Sandy, and to wonder how long it would be until Sandy would be out and about again on crutches. Then he said to himself, it would be at least a month; and then when the next man came by and inquired after Sandy, he told him that in a month Sandy would be about on crutches. At this piece of information Limber Tim felt a great deal better. He said to himself he was very glad it was no worse, and then he screwed his back tighter up to the fence than before, and stood there trying to warm himself in the cold sunlight of a moist morning in the Sierra. It was like standing on the Apennines, turning your back, parting your coat-tails, and trying to warm yourself by the fires of Vesuvius.

Again Limber Tim tried to set his wits at work as he began to thaw out in the sun, and he felt certain that he had, when cold and weak and sleepy and anxious about his partner, with only his imagination well awake, told some very long stories. The only thing uppermost in his mind, and that seemed at all tangible, was the image of Bunker Hill lifting up her arm with stains on her sleeve, and crying out, "Blood!"

"Whisky, Limber! whisky, quick! The gals is a'most tuckered out! Go Split!"

He spun him round and sent him reeling down the trail, tore back over the fence, and banged the door behind him.

Limber Tim scratched his ear as he stumbled over the rocks in the trail, and wound his stiffened legs about the bowlders and over the logs on his way to the Howling Wilderness, and was sorely perplexed.

"Wal, it aint Sandy, any way. Ef his big hands have lost any o' their grip I don't see it." He shrugged his shoulders as he said this to himself, for they still ached from the vice-like grip of the giant.

Still Limber Tim was angry, notwithstanding the discovery that his old partner was sound and well, and he lifted the latch with but one resolution, and that was to remain perfectly silent and let his lies take care of themselves.

Men crowded around him as he entered and gave his orders. But this bulletin - board was a blank. He had set his lips together and they kept their place. For the first time in his troubled and shaky existence he began to know and to feel the power and the dignity of silence. He knew that every man there thought that he, who stood next to the throne, knew all. He felt dignified by this, and dared even to look a little se

He had crammed a bottle of so-called "Bourbon" in his left boot, and was just pushing into the right a "vial of wrath," when some one in the cabin sighed :

"Poor Sandy!"

Still Limber Tim went on pushing the vial of wrath into his gum-boot as well as he could with his stiffened fingers.

Then a man came up sharply out of the crowd, and throwing a big heavy bag of gold-dust, as fat as a pet squirrel, down on the counter, proposed to raise a "puss" for Sandy.

This was too much. Limber Tim raised his head, and, slipping as fast as he could through the crowd for the door, said, back over his shoulder:

"It aint Sandy at all. It's Bunker Hill. It's the gals. The gals is a'most tuckered out."

There was the confusion of Babel in the Howling Wilderness. The strange and contradictory accounts that had come down from the Widow's-their shrine, the little log-house that to them was as a temple, a city set upon a hillwere anything but satisfactory. The men began to get nervous, then they began to drink, then they began to dispute again, and then they began to bet high and recklessly who it was that had cut his foot.

"Got it all right now," said poor Limber Tim to himself, as he made his way up the trail as fast as possible, with the two bottles in the legs of his great gumboots for safe carriage. "Got it all right now! That's it. Bunker Hill cut her foot or shot her hand with that darned deringer, or something of the kind. That's it, that's where the blood came from, that's why she's tuckered-that's what's the matter." And so saying and musing to himself, he reached his post, uncorked the "vial of wrath," as it was called, looked in at the contents, turned it up toward the sun as if it had been a

felt slightly confirmed in his opinion.

Again the door flew open, Sandy flew out, rushed over the fence, took the Bourbon from the trembling hand of Limber Tim, and before that worthy could get his wits together, had disappeared and banged the door behind him.

Limber Tim did not like this silentdignity business a bit. "Lookee here!" he said, as he again turned the telescope up to the sun, and then looked at the door, "I'll see what's what, I reckon."

He went up to the fence and leaned over, but his heart failed him.

Then he resorted to the vial of wrath, again looked at the sun, and as he replaced it in his boot felt bold as a lion. The man was drunk. He climbed the fence, staggered up to the door, lifted the latch, and pushed it open.

Bunker Hill came softly out of the bedroom, pushed Limber Tim back gently as if he had been a child, shut the door slowly, and the man went back to his post no wiser than before.

Men have curiosity as well as women. Weak women over weaker tea, discussing strong scandal in some little wouldbe- fashionable shoddy saloon in Paris, are not more curious than were these half-wild men here in the woods. The difference is, however, this was an honest sympathetic interest. It was all these men had outside of hard work to interest them.. They wanted to know what was the matter in their little temple on the hill. The camp was getting wild.

Limber Tim tried to screw himself up against the fence for some time, and failing in this, turned his attention again to the vial of wrath. He was leaning over, trying to get it out of his boot-leg, when the door opened and Bunker Hill stepped out carefully, but supple and straighter than he had ever seen her.

Limber Tim was quite overcome. He

cañon.

"They'll be a comet next." He shook his head hopelessly at this remark of his, and again bent down and wrestled with the boot-leg and bottle.

The men went out of the Howling Wilderness as the man who shot this injunction or observation in at the door I went in, and to their amazement saw the woman mentioned walk rapidly on past the saloon. She did not look up, she did not turn right or left, or stop at the saloon, or speak to anyone; she went straight to her own cabin. Then the men knew for a certainty that it was the little Widow who was ill, and they knew that it was this woman who was nursing her, and they almost worshiped the ground that the good Samaritan walked upon.

Soon Bunker Hill came out again, and again took the trail for the Widow's cabin, walking all the time as rapidly as before. The men as she passed took off their hats and stood there in silence. There was a smile of satisfaction on her plain face as she climbed the hill. She went up that hill as if she had been borne on wings. Her heart had never been so light before. For the first time since she had been in camp, she had noticed that she was treated with respect. It was a rare sensation, new and most delightful. The hump on her back was barely noticed as she passed Limber Tim trying to lean up against the fence, and entered with a noiseless step, and almost tiptoe, the home of the sufferer.

The men respected this woman now more than ever before. They also respected her silence. At another time they would have called out to her; sent banter after her in rough unhewn speech, and got in return as good, or better, than they sent. But now no man spoke to her. She had been dignified, sancti

in the trail, and helped her over it as if she had been his own child. Yet this old man had despised her and all her kind the day before.

She went and came many times that day, and always with the same respect, the same silent regard from the great Missourians whom the day found about the Forks.

Then Captain Tommy came forth in the evening, and also went on straight to her cabin, and her face was full of concern. The Captain had not been a person of any dignity at all the day before, but now not a man had the audacity to address her as she passed on with her eyes fixed on the trail before her.

When she returned, the man at his post had fallen. Poor Limber Tim! He would not leave his station, and Sandy had something else to think of now; and so he fell on the field. It was not that he had drank so much, but that he had eaten so little. His last recollections of that day were a long and protracted and fruitless wrestle with the vial of wrath in his boot-leg, and an ineffectual attempt to screw the picketfence on his back.

It was no new thing to find a man spilt out in the trail in those days, and his fall excited no remark. They would carry men in out of the night and away from the wolves, or else would sit down and camp by them until they were able to care for themselves.

A man took a leg under each arm, another man took hold of the shoulders, and Limber Tim, now the limpest thing dead or alive, was borne to his cabin.

One-two-three days. The camp,

that at first was excited almost beyond bounds, had gone back to its work, and only now and then sent up a man from the mines below, or sent down a man from the mines above, to inquire if there was yet any news from the Widow. But not a word was to be heard.

All these days the two women went and came right through the thick of the men, but no man there was found rude enough to ask a question.

Never had the camp been so sober. Never had the Forks been so thought

ful. The cinnamon - headed bar-keeper leaned over his bar and said confidentially to the man at the table behind the silver faro-box, who had just awakened from a long nap:

"Ef this 'ere thing keeps up, I busts." Then the red-haired man drew a cork and went on a protracted spree all by himself.

"Send for a gospel sharp," said he, "an' then we'll go the whole hog. The Forks only wants to git religion now, an' die."

I

PROPOSE to myself the unpleasant but necessary duty of setting myself right with the world. In a very short time I hope to slip out of the name which I now wear, to leave it with its honors and dishonors, and by the help of the legislature to begin anew. For there was born at about the same time with myself a young man whose parents gave him the very name my parents gave to me. The Todds are an old and honorable family; but by some whim, to make me separate and distinct among them, I was entitled Anthony. In the meanwhile the other Dromiothe pseudo Anthony-had drawn the same prize from the wheel of fate.

I was to be well educated. School preceded college, and college preceded the profession of law. As Anthony Todd I had my fair share of success. There was a certain "taking" character to my name which was in my favor. I was never blessed or cursed with a nickname. And by my label in the great cabinet of human-kind I might as easily be gold as quartz. No success became impossible by reason of the fact that my father and mother had made a mistake in nomenclature. Had

they marked me "Coal," I should have burned down quietly in the furnace of life. Had I been christened "Malachite," I might have risen to a Russian royalty. But plain "Anthony Todd" meant neither one thing nor the other. A scholar, a poet, a financier, a statesman-nay, even a doctor of divinity or a doctor of medicine - would have felt as if the name and the pursuit fitted well together.

Meanwhile, growing up, I can't tell how (and I wish I never need have thought about it), was my alter ego, the aforesaid spurious Anthony Todd. But he kept his light under a bushel, and no one knew of him.

Let me see: it was after I had graduated from Columbia College Law School and had entered my uncle's office in New York City. About this date a college class - mate dropped into the office with a paper, exclaiming:

"Why, Todd, I really congratulate you! Didn't know you wrote verses, old boy. Knew you wrote confounded good English, but wasn't prepared for this, I must confess."

I took the paper. It was the Evening Post, in which Mr. Bryant is popu

tone.

larly supposed to care for the poetical And there I certainly saw an "Ode on Italian Liberty," with my name as that of its author.

When I look back I see that at this very moment I made the blunder which has cost me so dear. Harrington, my class - mate, was an inveterate joker — a rhymester of more than ordinary power-and it flashed into my mind that certain things in the poem made it desirable to take the edge from his joke. If he had given me the glory of his own production it would foil his stratagem if I failed to be surprised. So I smiled, and said to him:

"There isn't much difference between good prose and good verse."

"But did you really write it? Because, seriously, it's uncommonly nicesort of super-extra, you understand."

"O! come now, Harrington, I'm nervous about first attempts. Don't bother me. Besides, I'm busy-got a case in

court - "

"Bah! Carry law-books, you mean. Look here, this is a good deal more valuable than law-books or cases in court. Confound it all, can't you comprehend that you're the coming poet?-or shall I have to get at you and hammer it into your stupid head?"

Well, this was certainly carrying a joke some distance, but I was sure of the joke nevertheless. So the more he praised the more I simpered about it; and he went away, convinced that when a man did achieve a literary success it assuredly made an ass of him. Yet the success remained in spite of its

author.

I heard of that "Ode" so often that I took pains to read it through. It was largely after the manner of Swinburne, with a dull glow of fleshly color striking up through its fervor, suggesting the Rome of the decadence, and the luxuriousness of Pompeiian aristocracy. In fact, I should not have liked to read it

aloud before some of my lady friends. Still, I found they did get possession of it, and the dear creatures considered me a most interestingly wicked person-calm outside but volcanic within! I became a lion, and understood practically Horace's remark about the

"Monstrari digito ac dicier. Hic est!'

Light whispers attended me, and I was wafted along by them upon the perfumed waves of "good society."

Now I would have you observe that a man's public is not at best a very large one-that many a "feeble taper" casts its rays into a charmed circle totally unconscious of some other equally brilliant tallow-dip in some other circle equally charmed. And, to confess it, I was shining at the expense of a very different tallow-dip called Anthony Todd. But I plead in extenuation two circumstances. First, I accepted homage, but never claimed it or sought it, or said in so many words, "I am the author." Secondly, I really had no knowledge of the existence of any other Anthony Todd than myself, and still supposed this to be the joke of my jovial friend Harrington, who took every pains and care to spread my fame, and so encouraged the thought.

A few more of my butterflies took wing meanwhile. (I ought to confess that I had tried verse after the "Ode" appeared, and had totally failed inside the limit of three lines.) Wherefore when the name of Anthony Todd became more common property, and even lay down gently in the green pastures of the cover of Putnam's Monthly that truly democratic magazine-I grew somewhat uneasy.

How glad I was that I had not to write in albums like Charles Lamb and Tom Hood, and was not yet pestered for autographs like Tennyson and Longfellow. Yet with a faint fragrance of Scripture to my thought, I "doubted