was good-natured and jolly and always had a good word for folks. An' he liked children.

"I remember of his stoppin' at my ol' man's place once, when a neighbor's little girl was there. This girl-Min, I believe her name was had a new doll, an' of course she wanted to show it to Potts first thing. So she trotted it out an' put it in his lap and then turned its dress up, as doll-mammas always do, and made him look at the lace on its under-clothes. An' Potts laughed — why, I can see him now, settin' there on the front porch, all dirty and smeared with wagon grease, holdin' Min's new doll in his big hands and tellin' her that it's the purtiest dolly ever he seed. But that was a long time ago. Potts is different now."

Clark, of the Oregon House, paused in his talk and puffed away in silence for a few mintues.

The Man at the Plum Box, having satisfied himself, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, ("When in Rome, etc.,") and now sat gazing up the river. It was not an uninteresting view. From a narrow gorge in the high brown hills, the river suddenly appeared, a stream of dull yellow that threw itself tempestuously from the big, waterworn rocks, and then with a smooth, graceful curve, flowed downward toward point on which the blacksmith's shop stood. Here, as it turned to take another direction, it fretted, and fumed, and growled, and muttered once more, until finding a straight course again, it journeyed peacefully to Climmin's point, where it made another angry turn.

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the

As one looks up the river one notices a red cut" that leads, with the natural wind of the hills from the river-bed to points far up on the mountains, on either side of the river. That is the road that goes from Brown's valley to French Corral, and where it crosses the Yuba is known as Rice's crossing. It is simply a ford, and in certain seasons an impassable one.

Far up the river, however, where the gorge is narrowest, there is a steel-wire cable, with a rude car swung under it, and on this, people on foot who wish to cross the river (mostly Indians and Chinese miners, with now and then a wandering artist, or scribe, "prowling for the picturesque ")

go over. Just below the cable there is a camp of the Chinese, containing a store, a garden, and half a dozen huts. In September the river is low, and the Chinese sluice among the bowlders in its very bed, turning it aside with wing-dams, for this purpose.

As the Man at the Plum Box looked up the cañon he could see the Chinese miners at work just below the cable. The sun was bright, and now and then their wet shovels, as they turned them in air, flashed like disks of silver. The yellow Yuba roared and thundered in its uneven course where they were working, and the cañon was full of the vibrant sound of its ceaseless conflict with the huge bowlders that lined its way; and yet, now and then, as the wind blew down the river, the sharp, nasal tones of the Chinamen's voices could be distinctly heard. The Man at the Plum Box got to marveling at the clearness with which things could be distinguished over the dull, never failing thunder of the great river that swept along below him, and all but forgot Potts entirely. Even Clark seemed to find something foreign to think of, and smoked and gazed in silence.

A mountain quail, across the cañon, whistled melodiously, and its soft, but impellant notes, seemed almost to echo. Just below the shop, about a quarter of a mile down the river, two sons of the Flowery Kingdom were running a rocker, and he could distinguish the harsh kaash! kaash! kaash! kaash! of the gravel as it grated back and forth on the iron "riddle,” and could hear the stones rattle as they were thrown out. He even fancied he could hear the see-ee of the water as it was poured upon the gravel from the old oyster can that served the Chinaman as a dipper, - but of course he was mistaken in that.

As he was listening to these noises, a sound came to his ears from farther down the river. It was a long cry, a quavering, fainting call that beat back and forth from point to point, and finally passed him by, seemingly like a broken-winged spirit flying painfully up the great cañon to die away in the dull thunder of the sweeping waters.

Clark moved as about to rise, and took his pipe from his mouth. Both listened.

The river thundered, the quail across the cañon whistled, the Chinamen clinked their picks and talked nasally far up the gorge. But the cry they had heard was not repeated,

and Clark finally stretched himself out again and returned to his leisured smoking and talking. His only comment was, “I guess them Injuns must be drunk."

He blew the smoke from his thin lips and sprayed it out through his sandy, drooping mustache. Then he continued:

"Mabbe Scar-Faced Dick has been to town, or old Potts has seen a fresh batch of his air ships. By the way, I was tellin' you about Potts, was n't I?

"Well, after Potts began to get looney, he got to avoidin' meetin' people and talkin' to 'em, and finally he came across the river here and married and cut all his tribal relations with white folks. He got hold of some land and made himself a ranch, (it's just up the hill here about two miles,) and raised five or six boys and two girls. All the boys are married now to Injun girls, and one daughter is married. The other girl,- Rena, by name, old Potts made her stay at home with him to keep house after his wife died, which happened a year or so ago.

"Potts has been gittin' loonier and loonier all the time, and since his old squaw-wife died he has been pretty bad. He's always mutterin' and talkin' to himself; or when he ain't doin' that, he's slippin' around through the brush so all-fired silent that he makes a feller feel scary.

I

"What is he looney about?' Well, blamed if I know exactly, without it's religion. You see, he's a sort of spiritualist, and he's always seein' things in the air. Sometimes he sees one thing, and sometimes another, but generally he sees ships. I remember I was talkin' with him once, forget just what we were conversin' about, but Potts was talkin' as sensible as any man could, when suddenly his eyes opened wide, and a sort o' scared expression came on his face and he lifted his hand and pointed to the sky.

'Look at

"Look at the ships!' he says. the pretty ships sailin' in the sky! Don't yo' see 'em? Ships! Ships!'

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"I looked where he pointed and I could n't see even a yaller-hammer or a blue-jay. "I don't see no ships,' I says. "Don't see 'em!' says Potts. dume ye, whar's yer eyes? Can't yo' see em? Why thar 's thousands and thousands of 'em!'

'Why

"He stood looking at the sky for awhile, and then he got sane again and went right

along with what we were sayin'. You bet I cut the conversation short and got away from there. I ain't got no use for crazy people."

Clark, of the Oregon House, paused again and seemed to gather his thoughts.

"But the old man was crazy enough this mornin', he continued. "As I said, he 's had one of his girls livin' with him and last night he tried to give her a whaling, and she ran away and came down to where the boys were workin' at the Point. The old man came down this mornin' lookin' for the girl and him and the boys had a fight. The girl skipped out while they was scrappin', and then the old man chased her two or three miles with an ax, tryin' to ketch her. But he did n't ketch her, and when he came back he was just a ravin' maniac. He passed by the shop, going down river, and he was the wildest lookin' mortal you ever He had the ax in his hand yet, and he was swingin' it and talkin' and yellin' to the sky, and I reckon he 'd have killed anybody that got in his way. I know I'd 'a' shot him if he 'd 'a' came at me; and George, my boy, he was about scared plumb to death. I tell you, that's why he pulled out so early, I reckon. I should n't be surprised if some of his half-breed boys lays him cold one of these days; for if they don't he'll surely kill some of them. He

see.

The narrative was cut short by the sudden appearance of a man. He scrambled up from the trail that led from the river, and ran out to the middle of the platform in front of the shop. The horses, peacefully engaged in picking up the few remaining straws of their morning "feed," scented him, and then saw him, and snorted. No wonder, for the man was a strange-looking being.

A tall man, broad-shouldered and well made. On his head, a woman's ragged straw hat, beneath which long black hair hung down to his shoulders. A rough shirt, villainously dirty, partly covered the upper portion of his body, partly, I say, because it was torn open at his throat, showing his hairy breast, and had no sleeves, which left his long, sun-burned, muscular arms bare. From his waist down he was covered by a pair of old pants which came only to his ankles, and his feet were shoeless. In his right hand he held an ax, and on his gaunt, grizzled, haggard face, in which burned two

fierce, hollow eyes, were the shadows of insanity.

For a moment he stood still, his great chest rising and falling with the tides of excitement that surged within him. Then his fierce eyes, wandering and ever restless, caught sight of the two men under the shed of the old shop, and were at once fixed upon them with an intensity not pleasant. For yet another moment he stood thus, and then, with quick, cat-like steps, he started towards them.

The Man at the Plum Box turned pale and attempted to rise; but was pulled down to a huddled heap. Then Clark's hand went to his back pocket and pulled out an old Colt's revolver. He had drawn his knees up close to his chin, and now he laid the barrel of his pistol upon his knees, the muzzle of it pointing down hill towards the slowly advancing lunatic.

With his finger resting lightly upon the trigger; with his thin lips parted so they showed the tobacco-stained teeth, between which his pipe-stem was held so tightly that it was crushed flat; with his gray eyes filled with that cold, steely light that tells of an unswerving, unpitying determination, Clark waited.

Behind the man upon which his gun was trained, the great cañon of the Yuba lay,a strange, impressive background for the tragedy the Man at the Plum Box felt, was about to take place.

man came within a few yards of him Clark called out,

"Don't come any nearer, Potts, or I'll shoot!"

Potts stopped, looked at Clark steadily for a moment, then whirled and went down the trail on the other side of the platform -the trail that led towards the Chinamen's camp up the river. As he disappeared down the steep bank Clark let down the hammer of his gun and said,

66

'How 'd you like Mr. Potts?"

Then he became aware of the fact that he had ruined his pipe-stem and with a halfserious, half-humorous smile on his face he remarked:

"Well, hang ol' Potts! If I'd knowed I was goin' to bust my pipe, I 'd 'a' shot him anyway!"

"I'm glad you did n't know it, then," replied the Man at the Plum Box, with a faint smile, which died away as a wild, hoarse cry came up from the river.

They went out to look, and saw Potts standing on a rocky point, waving his arms and gesticulating to the calm, blue sky.

"H' ph!" said Clark, "It was him, then, that was yellin' down the river, guess that was when the spell came on him. Well, I'm going to fix my pipe up and finish my smoke before I pull out of here, leavin' Mr. Admiral Potts to review his ships as much as he wants to."

Then Clark, of the Oregon House, went clambering up the hill-side, looking for a

HERE are few regions even in the West today, where one may go and find game, large as well as small, in abundance. Even the precipitous mountain ranges, almost inaccessible to man, the Rockies, the Sierra Nevada, and the Coast range, have been hunted over so thoroughly by Indians and white professional hunters, the latter of whom kill for hides, that when the amateur sportsman scans the map of the country for a district in which he can kill more than a deer a day, he will have to make many inquiries before he can satisfy his mind that there is yet such a place left.

Still there are spots, scattered over State maps, where sport of the old time sort, which is now so rare, can still be found, and one of the most interesting of these places is the lake district of southern Oregon, not far from the California line. It was in this country last summer that a party of three amateur sportsmen killed seventy-six "tal

low tail" deer and three bears, besides innumerable grouse, squirrel, and mallard duck, and catching steel-head and Dolly Varden trout until no note was taken of their numbers. For three days this party averaged a killing of thirteen deer a day, and the great strings of their carcasses which were hung up in the camps at night, were it not for the wooded backgrounds of the pictures, might have resembled the abatoir of a professional butcher.

Fortunately, in proof of these statements, Mr. F. W. Beck, a well known photographer of San Francisco, formed one of the party. True to his trade he carried his camera, and views were taken from time to time of the progress and success of the expedition.

The company started from California early in July on the California & Oregon railroad, for Ashland, Oregon, where six horses were purchased and provisions laid in for a campaign of six weeks. Amply accoutered, with horses, wagon, and dogs, the party struck northeast and moved through the Dead Injun country fifty miles to Fish lake, where camp was pitched for a week. This lake, though a mile across, is but five feet deep and of crystal clearness. Through its limpid waters dart endless numbers of steel

head trout, their big bodies and their slowly wagging tails clearly visible by day against the white sandy bottom, although they are taken most readily at night, and strange to say, with the spear.

Whoever heard of spearing trout! Yet we did it, and the experiment convinced us that the sport outdoes that of the hook and line. We fixed a blazing pine knot about three feet beyond the bow of the boat, and two stood in the boat with spears while a third paddled at the stern. The fish swam in schools, and when they got in the light they were "locoed." They swam in and out of the light streak, and being slow swimmers, moving close to the surface, they were easily struck with the spear. Fortytwo caught in this way, immense fat fellows, some measuring four feet, were the result of the first night's sport.

We then went to Fort Klamath lake. This

lake is a great sheet of water, sixty miles long and thirty miles across. Here ducks and geese were in abundance. We shot all the mallards we desired with a 22-caliber rifle; it was tedious knocking them one at a time, for we had no shot-gun. An Indian came along and showed us a better way. He had a dog, rode a pony, and carried a club. He plunged his steed into the marsh among the tules on the edge of the lake, while the dog ran ahead and flushed the "flappers." As they arose in bunches from the tall grass Lo would reach over and whack them with his stick, and with such effect that when he got ready to go to camp he had about forty.

At Lake of the Woods, a small pond lying at the foot of Mount Pitt about seven miles northeast of Fish lake, we shot a quantity of fat grouse, which were here very plentiful. It was at this place, too, that we saw