THE DEPARTURE FROM THE CITY. MRS. HENRIETTA LUCY CRUGER, wife of a wealthy and prominent banker of New York City, called to her two sons, Ralph and Donald: 'Boys, come here! I have news for you." Ralph, sixteen years old, slender, long-legged, pale, and narrow of chest, was doubled in a big chair in the adjacent library, deep in the second volume of Carlyle's "History of the French Revolution." He did not understand one half of it, nor appreciate the other half, but it was his fashion to pretend a tremendous interest. A boy only fourteen years old, who attended the same fashionable school, had read the book, and talked much about it. So he answered not at all to his mother's call. Donald, aged thirteen, like his brother in build and face, was curled in another chair. His nose was within three inches of a thin volume bought in a second-hand book-store downtown. When not reading it in safety, he kept it hidden in the bosom of his shirt. It was called "Sea Wolf; or, The Black Avenger of the Spanish Main." Only eight persons were killed in the first chapter, but it got better as it went on. Just then the "Avenger" had captured Panama with a boat-load of assistants, defeating two thousand Spanish soldiers, and was cavorting through the main street with a pistol in each hand and a cutlas between his teeth, picking off dukes and captains of the guard. In justice to Donald it must be said that he did not hear his mother. He would not have heard a salvo of artillery. The Rio Grande rises in southwestern Colorado Harry, then six years old, and all of his capital. He did this because of bad health resulting from overwork. He wanted pure air, quiet, and a complete change of occupation. He bought twenty thousand acres of wild land in Dimmit County, built a home, and began raising cattle and sheep. He died five years ago. The venture proved to be a success, I think. Your aunt manages the ranch, assisted by Harry, of 66 CARLYLE'S 'FRENCH REVOLUTION,' AND 'THE BLACK AVENGER OF THE SPANISH MAIN.' your uncle by marriage, who was a Philadelphia physician in excellent practice, went to the Lower Rio Grande country in 1880, taking with him my sister Mary (his wife), their son VOL. XXIX.-63. whom she is very proud. He is just your age, "Her letters are full of him," said Ralph." asks that I send you two to spend a winter on the ranch. It is now the end of September, and the most delightful season of the year is beginning in that section. She is anxious to have you come. Would you like to go?" Ralph did not answer. He was thinking of half-formed plans for the coming wintertheaters, lectures, dances for youngsters in their teens, automobile rides in the snow, ice-polo, of many things. He coughed slightly behind his hand, and his mother marked the cough. A shade of anxiety came to her face. Donald asked: "Are there Spanish down there?" "There are many Spanish-descended Mexicans," Mrs. Cruger replied. attend to purchasing proper outfits. They returned to the library, but, to save his life, Ralph could not become interested in the bloodthirstiness of M. Marat, and for Donald the fangs of the "Sea Wolf" had lost their point and shine. Gore dripped from the jaws of this ravager, and the howls of his fearful companions rang over burning Panama, but it was all flat and stale. The intervening days passed quickly. There were some tears and sobbings from Donald, but the parents were inexorable. More than once Ralph felt a lump in his throat, but he choked it back. Should a youth able to grapple with Carlyle boohoo like an infant? The boys surveyed their rough clothing with a mixture of interest and contempt. They were "Don Antonio Palacios de Garcia, gov- pleased, however, with a small rifle and a shoternor of Panama, a grandee of haughty mien,' gun, and with a handsome camera, too. Donald went on incautiously, "'defended the huge trunks accompanied them to the train. town with all the skill and valor of a tried vete- When their mother had seen them comfortably ran, but his stern bravery availed naught against placed on a sleeper which would go through to the magnificent daring of the black-browed-"" St. Louis, she kissed them often, and told them Then he stopped in confusion, the blood that they must write to her every few days, which mounting to his pale face. His mother looked they promised promptly, having no foreknowat him wonderingly. Ralph snickered. Ralph snickered. She ledge that they would do nothing of the kind. forbore to press an inquiry, however, because the business in hand was important. "You ought to go," she remarked musingly, speaking half to herself. "I really think that you ought to go. You are neither of you so strong as I could wish-though you are stout boys," she added quickly, to reassure herself; "yes, you are quite stout. Still, the climate and the open air would make you stronger, and I-I think that I shall send you." There was much pain in her brown eyes, and her arm tightened about Donald, but, boylike, they did not see the pain, nor had they any understanding of what the decision cost her. They began a protest, but she interrupted them with: They reached the Mississippi on schedule time, raced across the State of Missouri, cut a corner off Kansas, and plunged downward through the wilderness of Indian Territory. They were interested, of course, in the coppercolored people with black eyes who came to the little stations in the Territory to see the train go by, and for the first time encountered slain wild turkeys as an article of daily barter. When they entered Texas they began to inquire of fellow-passengers the distance to San Antonio. They were astounded when told that it was some hundreds of miles. Also they were disappointed, because they were getting tired. A boy, however, will stand an unlimited amount of riding so long as he has new things to look at, and they were fairly fresh when they reached the quaint half-Mexican city of the Alamo, where they stayed three hours, and Donald made himself ill with tamales and chile-concarne, which burnt the roof of his mouth dreadfully, and made him wish that he was back with his mother. Their destination was Cotulla, a little railway It town in La Salle County, eighty miles south of San Antonio. They arrived at five o'clock in the afternoon of a cloudless October day. As they stepped upon the wooden platform of the station and saw their trunks tossed from the baggage-car, they were surprised by the lightness and dryness of the atmosphere, in which there was not even a suggestion of cold. seemed to both Ralph and Donald that their chests expanded an extra inch as this air found its way into their lungs. It had an exciting effect, too, and sent the blood faster through their veins. Green things were all about them. Even the grass had the hue which adorns Central Park in the spring. They knew that they ought to feel lonely, but they did not. Instead they were happy, and smiled at each other, though they had quarreled now and then on the way down. They had sent frequent postal-cards homeward, and thought that their duties as correspondents had been discharged. They were gazing at the fast-vanishing train when a round, pleasant voice, with a boyish ring to it, greeted them: "You are my cousins, are n't you? I 'm Harry Downing." They turned, and faced a youth taller than Ralph and much heavier. His shoulders were square, his arms long, his chest deep and arched -evidently a powerful boy for his years. There was something in his frank face which reminded them of their mother. Perhaps it was the eyes, which were brown like hers, or it may have been the resolute chin. The almost womanish softness of the eyes was redeemed in part by heavy black eyebrows. His hair, too, was black, and curled massively over his brow. The wind lifting these short curls showed a white space upon the upper part of his forehead to which the sun had not reached. The remainder of his face was burnt to a nut-brown, and through the darkened skin the clear flush of health glowed redly. There was an air of independence and self-reliance about him, of positiveness even, and no trace at all of embarrassment. He was clad in a light woolen coat of brown, a gray flannel shirt, and brown trousers stuffed into riding-boots whose heels were spurred. On his head, tilted aback, was a wide dark hat of felt,-a sombrero, -and about his waist a broad leather belt with loops upon it, made for the holding of rifle and pistol cartridges. He smiled as he spoke, showing white, even teeth. It was inexpressibly debonair and engaging, this smile. Ralph, as became the owner of an automobile and a student of Carlyle, was slightly formal. He had dim thoughts of reaching into a vestpocket for a card. The eyes of brown, so like mother's, caught Donald, and he stepped forward impulsively, both hands extended. "Yes," he said, "we 're the Cruger boys. You 're Cousin Harry. How do you do!" Harry shook hands vigorously, clapped the reluctant Ralph on the shoulder, and said, with a slight drawl: Oh, no," was the reply. "The sun 's an hour high yet. The wagon and team are here. We 'll make Espia Creek by dark, and camp there." Two Mexicans were called, and the trunks lifted into a stout farm-wagon drawn by undersized horses. The Crugers climbed into a spare seat. Harry took the reins, and, by way of a level road, they entered a dense growth of mesquit which grew to the edge of the town. On either side strange birds were calling. The rich scent of late-blossoming catclaw made the air odorous. Yellow blooms of the huisache hung over the narrow road. A bevy of slatecolored quails whirred up in mimic thunder from the undergrowth. Huge cacti, ten, twenty feet high, reared ungainly forms. The land was rolling, gentle hills and shallow vales, and swathed completely in its robe of green. Two miles from Cotulla they struck a small prairie, still starred with blossoms. Trotting slowly for a half-hour, they paused upon the summit of a low hill. Below them stretched a declivity of |