To assure himself of obedience, he disengaged one hand from the blanket, and grasping his father's sleeve, again composed himself to rest.

For some moments the Old Man waited patiently.

Then the unwonted stillness of the house excited his curiosity, and without moving from the bed, he cautiously opened the door with his disengaged hand, and looked into the main room.

To his infinite surprise it was dark and deserted.

But even then a smouldering log on the hearth broke, and by the upspringing blaze he saw the figure of Dick Bullen sitting by the dying embers.

"Hello!"

Dick started, rose, and came somewhat unsteadily towards him.

"Whar's the boys?" said the Old Man.

"Gone up the cañon on a little pasear. They're coming back for me in a minit. I'm waitin' round for 'em. What are you starin' at, Old Man?” he added with a forced laugh; "do you think I'm drunk?”

The old man might have been pardoned the supposition, for Dick's eyes were humid and his face flushed.

He loitered and lounged back to the chimney, yawned, shook himself, buttoned up his coat and laughed.

"Liquor ain't so plenty as that, Old Man. Now don't you git up," he continued, as the Old Man made a movement to release his sleeve from Johnny's hand. "Don't you mind manners. Sit jist whar you be; I'm goin' in a jiffy. Thar, that's them now."

There was a low tap at the door.

Dick Bullen opened it quickly, nodded "good night" to his host, and disappeared.

The Old Man would have followed him but for the hand He could have and emaciated.

that still unconsciously grasped his sleeve. easily disengaged it; it was small, weak,

But perhaps because it was small, weak, and emaciated, he changed his mind, and drawing his chair closer to the bed, rested his head upon it. In this defenceless attitude the potency of his earlier potations surprised him. The room flickered and faded before his eyes, reappeared, faded again, went out, and left him-asleep.

Meantime, Dick Bullen, closing the door, confronted his companions.

"Are you ready?" said Staples.

'Ready!" said Dick; "what's the time?"

"Past twelve," was the reply; "can you make it ?—it's nigh on fifty miles, the round trip hither and yon."

"I reckon," returned Dick, shortly. "Whar's the mare?"

"Bill and Jack's holdin' her at the crossin'."

"Let 'em hold on a minit longer," said Dick. He turned and re-entered the house softly.

By the light of the guttering candle and dying fire he saw that the door of the little room was open.

He stepped toward it on tiptoe and looked in.

The Old Man had fallen back in his chair, snoring, his helpless feet thrust out in a line with his collapsed shoulders, and his hat pulled over his eyes.

Beside him, on a narrow wooden bedstead, lay Johnny, muffled tightly in a blanket that hid all save a strip of forehead and a few curls damp with perspiration.

Dick Bullen made a step forward, hesitated, and glanced over his shoulder into the deserted room.

Everything was quiet.

With a sudden resolution he parted his huge moustaches with both hands, and stooped over the sleeping boy.

But even as he did so a mischievous blast, lying in wait, swooped down the chimney, rekindling the hearth, and lit up the room with a shameless glow, from which Dick fled in bashful terror.

His companions were already waiting for him at the crossing.

ご

Two of them were struggling in the darkness with some strange misshapen bulk, which, as Dick came nearer, took the semblance of a great yellow horse.

It was the mare.

She was not a pretty picture.

From her Roman nose to her rising haunches, from her arched spine, hidden by the stiff machillas of a Mexican saddle, to her thick, straight, bony legs, there was not a line of equine grace.

In her half-blind but wholly vicious white eyes, in her protruding under lip, in her monstrous colour, there was nothing but ugliness and vice.

"Now then," said Staples, "stand cl'ar of her heels, boys, and up with you. Don't miss your first holt of her mane, and mind ye get your off stirrup quick. Ready!"

There was a leap, a scrambling struggle, a bound, a wild retreat of the crowd, a circle of flying hoofs, two springless leaps that jarred the earth, a rapid play and jingle of spurs, a plunge, and then the voice of Dick somewhere in the darkness.

"All right!"

"Don't take the lower road back onless you're hard pushed for time! Don't hold her in down hill! We'll be at the ford at five. G'lang! Hoopa! Mula! Go!"

A splash, a spark struck from the ledge in the road, a clatter in the rocky cut beyond, and Dick was gone.

Sing, O Muse, the ride of Richard Bullen! Sing, O Muse, of chivalrous men! the sacred quest, the doughty deeds, the battery of low churls, the fearsome ride and gruesome perils of the flower of Simpson's Bar! Alack! she is dainty, this Muse! She will have none of this buck

ing brute and swaggering, ragged rider, and I must fain follow him, in prose, afoot!

It was one o'clock; and yet he had only gained Rattlesnake Hill. For in that time Jovita had rehearsed to him all her imperfections and practised all her vices.

Thrice had she stumbled.

Twice had she thrown up her Roman nose in a straight line with the reins, and resisting bit and spur, struck out madly across country.

Twice had she reared, and, rearing, fallen backward; and twice had the agile Dick, unharmed, regained his seat before she found her vicious legs again.

And a mile beyond them, at the foot of a long hill, was Rattlesnake Creek.

Dick knew that here was the crucial test of his ability to perform his enterprise, set his teeth grimly, put his knees well into her flanks, and changed his defensive tactics to brisk aggression.

Bullied and maddened, Jovita began the descent of the hill. Here the artful Richard pretended to hold her in with ostentatious objurgation and well-feigned cries of alarm.

It is unnecessary to add that Jovita instantly ran away. Nor need I state the time made in the descent; it is written in the chronicles of Simpson's Bar.

Enough that in another moment, as it seemed to Dick, she was splashing on the overflowed banks of Rattlesnake Creek.

As Dick expected, the momentum she had acquired carried her beyond the point of balking; and holding her well together for a mighty leap, they dashed into the middle of the swiftly-flowing current.

A few moments of kicking, wading, and swimming, and Dick drew a long breath on the opposite bank.

The road from Rattlesnake Creek to Red Mountain was tolerably level.

Either the plunge in Rattlesnake Creek had dampened her baleful fire, or the art which led to it had shown her the superior wickedness of her rider, for Jovita no longer wasted her surplus energy in wanton conceits.

Once she bucked, but it was from force of habit; once she shied, but it was from a new freshly-painted meetinghouse at the crossing of the county road.

Hollows, ditches, gravelly deposits, patches of freshlyspringing grasses flew from beneath her rattling hoofs.

She began to smell unpleasantly, once or twice she coughed slightly, but there was no abatement of her strength or speed.

By two o'clock he had passed Red Mountain and begun the descent to the plain.

Ten minutes later the driver of the fast Pioneer coach was overtaken and passed by a 66 man on a Pinto hoss"-an event sufficiently notable for remark.

At half-past two Dick rose in his stirrups with a great

shout.

Stars were glittering through the rifted clouds, and beyond him, out of the plain, rose two spires, a flag-staff, and a straggling line of black objects.

Dick jingled his spurs and swung his riata, Jovita bounded forward, and in another moment they swept into Tuttleville, and drew up before the wooden piazza of "The Hotel of All Nations."

What transpired that night at Tuttleville is not strictly a part of this record.

Briefly I may state, however, that after Jovita had been handed over to a sleepy hostler, whom she at once kicked into unpleasant consciousness, Dick sallied out with the barkeeper for a tour of the sleeping town.

Lights still gleamed from a few saloons and gamblinghouses; but, avoiding these, they stopped before several closed shops, and by persistent tapping and judicious outcry