But she didn't; it wasn't long afore she was as bad as ever. The fact is, there was no helping it; she was born that way; she was a son-of-a-gun.

"I reckon there wasn't a day passed that I didn't see Perhaps So. I was with him a good deal, and I saw his wife occasionally, too. She was a very friendly woman, and very fascinating; she was pleasant to me, very. In fact, she tried her best to rope me in along with the rest of her victims, but I kept away from her as much as I could; I was afraid of her; she was very fascinating, and such a spirited talker, and so beautiful. I admired her mightily, but I didn't care to have much to do with her. You see, Judge, I liked the woman, tolerably, but I thought a heap of Perhaps So.

“'I wouldn't stand it,' I said to him one day; I'd send her home, or I'd go myself and take her away from here. You're jist a dragging your life out, old man, and some of these days you'll turn up your toes and die-jist die of a broken heart. You hear me! It's a fact, you'll die of a broken heart.' "This seemed to brace him up some, but not enough to amount to anything. only looked at me pitifully, and said: "Perhaps so."

He

"But it amounted to nothing else—just 'Perhaps so'; he didn't do anything positive, not a thing. The undignified proceedings of his wife continued. Finally, being Perhaps So's partner, I got clear out of patience with him, and so began to sympathizelike with his wife. Really, she was not a bad woman, and she was awful fascinating, and very pleasant to me, always. Judge, I liked her. It was a queer condition of things, I can tell you. Perhaps So was my partner, and I thought a heap of him. A fellow can't be downright dishonest, you know, to his partner, without a cause.

"Judge, what would you do under such circumstances with your partner a trusting of ye, and your partner's wife a hanging around you, and your own heart thumping like a sledge hammer? Wouldn't you go and hang yourself? Judge, I reckon you wouldn't!

Well, one night there was a party in town -a big dance in the checkered barn next to the meeting-house. Perhaps So's wife was going to be there. I learned that much from fellows on the street, who gave out incidentally, and kinder sneering-like, that she was billed for the hoe-down that night with Jack Walters, the gambler. This made me awful mad. I didn't wait ten seconds after I heard it, but took a straight shot for Perhaps So's cabin. He wasn't there, but his wife was; so was Jack Walters, spending the evening with her, before going.

"Where is Perhaps So?' I asked, savagely.

"I don't know,' she replied in the cheeriest sort of a voice and smiling pleasantly. Then she put out her hand, which was as white and soft as a baby's, and shook hands with me. Yes, she did; she smiled and shook hands with me, and all in the presence of Jack Walters! She was a fascinating woman, Judge, and no mistake.

"I asked again about Perhaps So.

"I don't know where he is,' she said; when Jack came in, Perhaps So left. If you don't desire to stay yourself, you'll like as not find him over on the hill-side, in the graveyard; he is there a good deal more than he is here, lately. Perhaps he is there now.'

"True enough, he was there-I found him curled up near the grave of the little girl, Gipsy, and it was the saddest sight I ever saw. As you hear that woman moaning now, so was Perhaps So moaning then. His heart was just about broken. I was sorry for him clean down to my boot-heels, and yet the sight of him lying there a helpless coward, and, knowing, as I did, that his wife was at home with another man, made my blood fairly boil.

do come out, and you see Jack Walters with her, shoot the top of his head off. Do you hear? Kill him in his tracks, like a wild animal. Do this, and your wife will respect you for it, and everybody else will respect you. Come, man, now is your time. Will you do it?'

"He was on his feet in an instant, and there was more determination in his face than I had ever seen before.

"I'll do it,' he cried; 'yes, I will. help me I'll kill the cuss in his tracks. go at once. Curse him!'

God

I'll

"And he went. He got behind a clump of bushes a short distance from the cabin door, and watched and waited. Wishing to see the fun, I also hid myself. Pretty soon the door opened, and Perhaps So's wife and the gambler came out. They were laughing and talking. They started off briskly. I watched 'em, thinking every moment the top of the gambler's head would come off. 'Perhaps So will kill him,' I said to myself. But the couple went on unmolested, and were soon out of sight. Then, all riled up again, and scarcely knowing what to think about it, I hurried to where Perhaps So was concealed. And there he was lying with his face in the sand, the loaded pistol by his side. Judge, the cuss had fainted dead away!

"That was enough for me. I resolved to keep tolerably clear of Perhaps So, after that, and I did; and I didn't advise him any more concerning the woman. I had had enough of him in this line; I was disgusted with him. I had done my part, sure, as a partner, and now he must look out for himself.

"I reckon it wasn't more than a week after this that the climax came; it was just as I expected. The woman had fallen dead in love with a fellow which she had been hanging around for a long while, and the first thing that Perhaps So knew, Mrs. Perhaps So was gone; and so was her lover; they slid off together-slid off quietly, and in the night. She was a son-of-a-gun!

"It nearly killed Perhaps So, it did, for a fact, although he was very quiet about it. Nobody ever seed him shed a tear; he did

not even groan or sigh, but the color went out of his face, and he got to looking like a dead man. I don't know the full particulars of his grief, for I was away at the time; what I know is by hearsay, passing remarks of the boys, two or three of them, that I met afterwards. I wasn't there to see for myself just how he felt. But it was a bitter dose, I reckon; leastwise, that was the general conclusion.

"As for the runaway couple, they didn't have much sense, and no particular idea of consequences, I reckon. It was midnight when they slipped out, and a heavy rain had set in late in the evening; it was the beginning of the spring rains, a season of danger, always, in the mountains. This time, it seemed as if everything was breaking into a deluge. It was the biggest time for rain and melted snow that was ever known in this part of the country. It came suddenly, but once down to business, it was one continuous sheet of water. The river, yonder, was fed by a dozen mountain streams, and the melting of the snow on the mountain top made the whole surface of the high ground above the river look like a running stream. You see how flat the ground is here, and how the river squirms around and makes a sort of pool down by yonder divide-well, all this stretch of land was covered with water, and the river itself was jist a biling. I never seed the water jump so high in so short a time. Only that part of town over there by the woman's cabin, which is sort o' on the hill-side, as you see, escaped the flood. Everybody living on the flats over there had to skip for the hills, or streak it for this quarter of the town, and that, too, in a hurry. This was the situation by noon the next day. The water kept a biling around, and foaming, and roaring, and gitting higher and higher, until loose boards and boxes and logs began to float away, and the cabins themselves looked as if they would go to pieces.

"It was about this time that Perhaps So's wife and her lover were discovered. They had sought shelter from the storm in a vacant cabin on the low ground near the river. This was shortly after midnight, and here

they had been since that time, waiting for the water to go down. But instead, the water kept creeping up, and now the cabin was in the very channel of an angry stream. It was a perilous situation. The house might at any moment go to pieces. I don't know how they managed to reach the top of the cabin, but they were there when Perhaps So and his friends saw them. You should have heard the yell that went up at this moment! It was loud and long. The water was with in a few feet of the roof of the house, and boiling and hissing like mad. Then it was that the woman began to wring her hands and cry, and then it was that it was discovered that her lover's arm hung useless by her side-that he had injured himself in some way—that his shoulder had been put out of joint. You see, he had missed his footing the night before, in crossing a gulch near Perhaps So's cabin, and had fallen a distance of twenty feet. The result was a broken arm and a busted shoulder. He was so bad off that he could scarcely move, much less do anything to save himself or the woman; so he didn't make an effort to save her or himself, either. He might have saved himself, but I reckon he wouldn't abandon the woman, anyhow.

"Well, it rained and it rained; every moment the house seemed about to go over. The guilty couple were in terror for their lives. By this time the water had reached the top of the cabin, and was gitting higher every minute. Was the woman frightened? Well, I reckon she was; she screamed and tore her hair, and was almost frantic; and the boys on the bank jist laughed at her, and said it was good enough for her, and that now Perhaps So was gettin' his revenge. "Let them both die,' was the general cry; they deserve nothing better. It'll be a pleasant sight for Perhaps So to see 'em go under.'

"This was the sentiment of the boys, and they all reckoned as how Perhaps So was with 'em. But he wasn't. Jist about that time, those who were looking at the stream saw a head come out of the water near the cabin, then a bare arm caught the edge of

the roof, then the whole man came into view. As sure as I am a sinner, it was Perhaps So, the son-of-a-gun! He was going to save that woman, sure. Jist about as he reached her the cabin went to pieces, but not before he had got hold of her with a grip of iron. She clung to him as though she had loved him always, and he kissed her-the fool--and they went into the water together, and there was a struggle for life. It was an awful battle, but the guilty woman got safely to shore. As for the man, her lover-well, by luck or chance, mostly by luck, I reckon―he managed to reach the shore, and then, like a wise man, took to the hills."

"And Perhaps So?" I asked, wonder

ingly.

My miner friend answered quickly, as he looked me straight in the eye, and his voice dropped almost to a whisper.

"Judge," he said, "Perhaps So never got out of the water alive-never got nearer shore than to land his burden. Jist as his arm was outstretched to place her on land, a heavy timber floating with the swift current, struck him dead. He fell back in the water and went down like a rock. The woman would have thrown herself in after him, but strong hands were there to prevent it. Then she got perfectly wild, and screamed, and tore her hair like a maniac. I reckon, after all, she must have loved him. Judge, tell me, do women sometimes love their husbands and not know it?

"The woman never got over it-never. When the water went down, the body of poor Perhaps So was found, and the boys. planted it right here, and the woman takes care of it. She does scarcely anything else, and although she is crazy, she is perfectly harmless; but she's a son-of-a-gun when it comes to taking care of a grave, she is, for a certain fact. Poor Perhaps So."

A burst of light came to me at that moment, and with an excitement which was unnatural with me, I caught him by the shoulder as he turned to go, and asked:

"The man-her lover-did you know him? Who was he? Speak!"

I shall never forget the look he gave me. It was not of pain alone, but of eagerness, of sorrow, of smothered grief. Pulling himself gently away from me, he said:

"I reckon that you didn't go for to hurt me-I reckon not; but don't take me by the shoulder again-don't. You see, I got it out of place about five years ago-fell and crushed it, and it ain't well yet. So don't touch it again, Judge, will you-don't."

Nothing more was said. I did not care to question him farther. I had heard enough. We turned to go. The red sun was sinking behind the western hills; the gurgling of the river came to us in mournful numbers, and the tall pines whispered unto the night that was fast approaching. And still sitting on the rock by the river side was the blueeyed woman with the yellow hair, rocking herself to and fro and moaning piteously. John Milton Hoffman.

THE recent riots in Belgium have not attracted the attention in the United States that their importance merits. Insubordination over a large district, the destruction of numerous flourishing manufacturing establishments, incendiary fires in cities, and murderous resistance to the police and military, were accounted for by the fact that Belgium is somewhat loosely governed, and harbors ruffians from all parts of Europe. This is undoubtedly true; yet the disturbances in this little kingdom are symptomatic of a much more general disorder, and one that finds far better conditions for development in the United States than even in Belgium. Belgium is probably the least governed country in Europe. Popular suffrage is more untrammelled there than elsewhere, party spirit runs higher, and instances are not unknown of the King's being insulted by popular outcries at the windows of his palace. Under such circumstances, desperate or designing men find a favorable field for their operations, and seize the occasion of popular excitements to prey upon society.

In Germany, all tendencies to anarchy are sternly repressed; more, they are anticipated and stifled in their birth. Several of the principal cities are continually under semi-martial law, or what amounts to it. The anti-socialist laws give the government power to prohibit any public meeting, without permission of the police obtained on forty-eight hours' notice. All meetings of a political character are attended by the police, and are closed at their order, if inconvenient language is used; and the government can expel from the country any one, native or alien, whose presence it deems dangerous to its quiet. These measures, with rigorous penalties against seditious language, written or spoken, send the German anarchist elsewhere to propagate his doctrine that property is robbery; that it is a necessary and meritorious act to

kill the capitalist and burn his belongings ; that all government is tyranny, and all laws are invasions of liberty. Germany owes to its strong laws, police, and military force, that it is comparatively free from the violence which has visited Spain, France, Belgium, and London, and of which we have just had a taste in Milwaukee and Chicago.

By our traditions and our form of government, resting largely on the intelligent obedience of the citizen, we are peculiarly liable to injury from the operation of these exotic doctrines. In the genial soil of American institutions, favoring the development of liberty and happiness beyond those of any other people, rank creeds of license may flourish, and poison the atmosphere. Our general maxims, preservative of individ ual freedom, of the right of assembly and bearing of arms, and of free speech and press, all facilitate secret, or more undisguised, conspiracies against public order. It is for this reason that such apostles of disorder as Herr Most carry on in our cities, so safely and extensively, their warfare against society; organize rifle clubs, with the avowed object of overthrowing the state, and drill men in the manufacture and use of dynamite bombs, to destroy property and its guardians.

A grave error would be committed if it were concluded that these manifestations of enmity to society are merely sporadic. They have their root in causes lying far beneath the surface, and there is little hope that they will die for want of nourishment. We shall see accessions to the ranks of the anarchists, rather than a diminution of their numbers. Crime, where cupidity inspires. violence, will seek opportunity with anarchy. Foreign tramps, expelled by sterner laws from the scenes of their native plotting, will swell the number of those here whom society must fight. There is danger that a spirit of imitation may lead many to join in such a combination, who would not originate