Purwas, would have been madness to urselves the tender mercies of the natives. My hopes of killing game, then, were disappointed, and we were all that time reduced to very short commons indeed. The scarcity of water was the greater of the two privations under that equatorial sun, to which was added our anxiety at the idea of not being able to rejoin the vessel.

At last, on the sixth day, after our first start, we observed a coral reef running parallel with the beach for several hundred yards; and inside this the water seemed to be perfectly smooth and undisturbed. Gladly then did we enter this quasi lake, thinking that now was the opportunity of making a more substantial repast-i. e. on game of some kind. The bow of the boat was run on the sand, and I was preparing to land with my rifle; when in the most unaccountable manner, a roller suddenly rose from the previously smooth surface and broke into the boat, actually washing one of my men overboard-a black. But I caught him by his woolly hair, and with the assistance of another, jerked him in again, before the second roller came on. It is a curious fact that in the Indian ocean when one roller makes its appearance, there are invariably three in succession. Well, we baled the water out as fast as we could, and presented the boat's stern to the second roller, which nearly toppled us over; still we went through it, although, of course, thoroughly drenched; and the same thing happened with the third, which was not quite so heavy. All this occupying but a very few minutes. In the

meantime, although we had not seen any of the natives for a couple of days, some of the Galla had been watching our proceedings, hidden behind the sand-hills and bushes; and just as we had made our way through the third roller, they rushed down to the beach shouting, and hurled their heavy spears at us. These whizzed past uncomfortably close, one of them very near my own head, and some of my men would have been struck, had they not promptly stooped when they heard the Galla yell. We might have returned a fire with our muskets and rifle, but in the first place they had been soaked in salt water and were probably useless for the time, and in the next, it would have been wanton destruction of life, as we found ourselves almost immediately out of danger.

The next question was, What was to be done? Trying to get back to the vessel we had long discovered to be a fruitless endeavor, but where to go? Our dilemma, however, was most fortunately put an end to by a small Arab craft, which came in sight as we were deliberating. The crew told us that we were only a few hours' sail from the Arab town of Brava to the north; so to that place we steered, now with wind and current in our favor, and ran in through a narrow channel between two rocks, on the top of a roller, which landed us high on the beach. number of friendly Arabs rushed forward before another breaker could overwhelm us, raised the boat and dragged us out of reach of the surf; there we were at length in safety and enabled to satisfy our ravenous hunger. J. Studdy Leigh, F. R. G. S.

A

Night had fallen over Black Bear Cañon,

and from the grey arch overspanning the wild gulch, the snow was falling in great soft flakes, settling on the dark pines, tipping each needle with white, and gliding down into the waters of the swollen creek, which boomed over its rocky bed, hurrying onward to its last mad rush into the muddy tide of the Salmon, ten miles below.

The stamps in the quartz mill had ceased their restless toiling, and inside the great building the only sound that broke the stillness was the rush of water over the bare plates and through the tailings-sluices. The annual clean-up had just been completed, and the bright gold bars awaited transportation, securely guarded in the great vault of the office across the muddy road, where Hal Vance sat writing a letter to go out with the bullion-train the next day.

The letter finished, Hal wheeled his chair in front of the open fire-place, threw on some pine-bark, rolled a cigarette, and lay back in his seat idly watching the blue smoke drift slowly toward the vortex, which, catching it, whirled it up the great chimney, amid the bright sparks that the snapping bark showered forth.

"Where the devil is Ray?" he murmured, yawning drearily. "Up at Travers's as usual, I suppose." A despondent shake of the head followed the supposition, succeeded in turn by a fit of deep musing, gradually merged into a doze, terminating in profound slumber.

Could it be that the next night would find him miles distant from that dear face? That there were to be no more nights in the fire-light, no more reading, no more chess, nothing but blank separation?

Months ago this woman had come into Ray's life; the wife of old Doc Travers, the hardest drinker and most unscrupulous gambler in the Salmon district. For weeks Southack had studied her character with an ever-increasing wonder that a woman with her refined tastes and pure nature could ever have allied herself with one so entirely her opposite. There was, for him, a mystery in her life, and in an idle moment he set himself to fathom it. He failed because there was really none to fathom. She was simply what she seemed-a pure-minded, pure-hearted woman. Knowing this he gave her all his sympathy. Then, before he knew it himself, all his love.

She knew his secret before he had discovered it, and fought against her pity for him with all her strength. She begged her husband to take her elsewhere. He refused: he could not, in fact-in no other camp would he have been tolerated. Then she was cool and distant with Ray. It but made him the more eager. This alarmed her; the more so that his manliness, grace, and deference charmed her. After so many years of neglect and wretchedness, it was sweet to be cared for.

The result can be predicted. It was hurried to a climax by an incident.

One day, in the mill, Helen's dress was caught by the great belt, which was hurrying her swiftly into the mass of wheels and pinions whose sharp teeth waited eagerly to tear that loveliness into horrible fragments. Ray, ever hovering near, caught her with at cry, and threw all his great frame, with

muscles tense and corded, in the opposite direction. It was hot love versus woolen fibre. Love conquered, the dress parted, and pale, nerveless, and trembling, Ray stood before Beauty in a white skirt, paling and crimsoning by turns, but with a look in the brown eyes that fired his stagnant blood and sent it bounding and tingling to his finger-tips.

Beauty did not faint, but hurried home wrapped in a blanket, while Strength gathered a fragment of her dress and thanked God it was only that. Old Doc Travers was maudlinly grateful, and Ray, disgusted, cursed him behind his beard.

Helen never told Ray that she loved him, nor tried to thank him in words; but he knew her heart and thought that Eden and Black Bear Gulch were synonymous terms. Then came the hours in the fire-light, with those long periods of silence, about which the booming waters without grumbled and complained till they fell a-talking again.

Sometimes Hal and Old Doc Travers came in, and the three men played euchre, with two-bit corners, "just to make it interesting," as the Doctor said. That the interest was all-absorbing to the latter was evidenced by his inevitable absorption of the cash, by means well understood, but never hinted at, by his opponents. Helen discouraged all such manifestations of skill as much as possible, but Hal paid his money cheerfully, "just for the pleasure of sometime over-reaching the old cuss" (which he never did); while Ray cared little who won or lost, if he could but watch a sweet face bending over its work in the glow of the firelight.

But Eden in South Salmon district had its serpent, and when old Doc Travers went on a protracted spree two or three times, culminating in an attack of delirium. tremens, which kept Ray and Hal at his bedside two days and nights, and took the color from Helen's cheeks and the strength from her frame, Ray began to re

Helen smiled sadly and tabooed the subject. Then Ray began to brood. There was less chess, less reading, and the booming waters without complained at longer intervals of silence.

During the long days, alone in her home, Helen thought much. Then she told Ray that he must go.

It was a terrible blow to him and he

rebelled fiercely. But Helen conquered, though it was like giving up life to let him go. So it had come to this: that they were sitting by the old fire for the last time together.

They had been silent for a long time. The heart was dumb with its pain, and lips were silent from sympathy. Each knew that the moments were slipping by, hurrying on that of separation, but the weight on each heart pressed ever more heavily and crushed down speech.

As Helen watched Ray's face, the light of compassionate love filled her eyes. Then her little hand slipped out and rested caressingly on his arm. "Ray," said she softly, "it is our last hour together. Help me to make it one to be remembered for its quiet happiness."

tears.

Southack looked up into the dear face, where a brave smile was struggling with "You ask me too much, Helen," said he. "How can happiness ever attach to the saddest hour of my life?-my last with you, perhaps for all time?" He rose and paced the room with long, impatient strides.

"It is best so, Ray, and it is right." The brown eyes met his bravely.

"Best! right!" repeated Ray bitterly. "Best to leave you to a life of wretchedness? Right that you should pass years in suffering, yoked to a worthless vagabond, who steeps you in his misery and degrades you, a pure,

sensitive woman, by his beastly, drunken companionship? It is not best and right. It is a horrible mockery of justice;" and Ray's deep voice trembled with suppressed passion. "Helen, did you ever love that man?" He paused suddenly in front of the bowed head.

After a silence, broken only by the roar of the rushing waters without: "Ray, I do not know. He was not always what he is now. His talents dazzled me, a young girl who knew nothing of men. I respected him -then." The voice faltered and paused. "Since I have known you, I am sure that I never loved him as I ought, when I mar ried him."

"The more reason in your freeing yourself from him. What claim has he upon you that he has not outraged in all ways?" and Ray leaned heavily against the wall of the fire-place, looking down on her.

"The error was mine," replied Helen sadly. "He loved me then, and even in the depths to which he has since sunk, he loves me still. Does that give him no claim upon me? You say that I could free myself from him. You are right, and he would help me. There are depths of generosity, even in his fallen nature, which you have never sounded."

Ray made a movement of impatience; a faint flush spread over the sweet face raised to his, but Helen continued steadily:

"Ray, he knows that I have long since lost my love and respect for him, and yet, he loves me. God knows that I tried to keep the knowledge from him, but I failed, and just how much that failure contributed toward his downfall, I cannot tell; but I cannot feel guiltless. Has he no claims upon me, Ray? Have I no duties to perform? I ask your heart."

"Your logic is pitilessly faultless," replied Southack, bitterly. "The more so that it convinces me how fruitless in happiness my love for you will ever be. You say that you love me, and yet you put that love so far

from you that, to me, it seems scarcely to exist."

The tears sprang to Helen's eyes under the sting of these words; but forcing them bravely back she rose and came to Ray's side, taking his hot hand between hers. Ray shivered at their icy coldness.

66

Dear heart, you do not mean that," said she, softly. "My love for you is so great that my life itself depends upon my keeping it out of my life. Your love for me is so sweet a happiness that I would rather lose my life than lessen it by attaching to it the smallest taint of disgrace. So we must part, dear. Doubts would come, even with your arms around me, with your kisses on my lips; and a doubt of your happiness would kill me dear. I could not help but doubt, and that would bring a great grief into our lives. So you must go Ray. But you must not think of me as grieving for you, dear. Think of me as trying to live a life worthy of the great love you have given me; a love which will always give me strength when I most need it."

Ray's head was bowed on his arm now. He felt how powerless he was to alter this woman's decision. He could but feel how just that decision was, yet he loved her at that moment more passionately than ever before. He felt how great a treasure was slipping from his grasp; but her nobleness had cleansed his nature from dross, and his duty lay plainly before him.

Helen's hand rested softly on his bowed head. Turning to her he took her face between his hands, and looking down into the depths of her dear, true eyes, said:

"You are right, dear heart, always right. I cannot feel that I could ever doubt your love; ever give you cause to doubt mine for you. It seems to me that the sweetest happiness I could have would be to call you my wife, and your being that would annihilate the past. But I cannot read your woman's heart, dear, further than to know that you love me with the best and purest of loves.

I will be brave and try to be worthy of that love. It will be bitterly hard for both, dear, but we can bear our sad lot, each helping the other. I must know where you may be, always. I cannot let you go out of my life wholly. You know where to send me any word, and you will if you need me?"

"Yes, Ray, I will," said Helen. "Now you must go, dear." Then, tremulously"Go quickly-this pain is too bitter."

Ray caught her swiftly to his breast, pressed a farewell kiss on her trembling lips, turned, and went out into the night. Helen sank into the seat he had so lately occupied, her head drooped into her hands, while the great weight on her heart seemed to crush out life.

The distant clatter of a closing door shot through the silence. Helen raised her head and quickly drew back into the shadows around the fire-place, and waited, with hot eyes, her husband's entrance. He did not come; it had been the wind that startled

The stillness remained unbroken, and again the weight crushed her heart.

Outside, the wind had risen, and was sweeping down the gulch, whirling the snow from the pine boughs, which moaned and tossed as if loth to lose their white, soft mantle.

The driving flakes beat into the face of a man plodding aimlessly through the mud and the slush of the road, muttering to himself, and staring vacantly into the storm, heedless of its pelting fury. Anyone meeting him would have recognized the disreputable and liquor-bloated old Doc Travers, and would have passed him by on the other side as drunk and dangerous-the latter element of character a natural sequence of his physical state in a man notoriously quick. with his gun, and at no time notable for a pacific disposition.

Travers, however, was not drunk, for once, nor even dangerous. But he was working his way slowly and surely, if not purposely,

toward the Bed Rock saloon, up the gulch.

Disjointed sentences, mingled with grim chuckles and, at times, imprecations of impatience and disgust, seemed to be jerked from him by the inequalities of the trail, as he stumbled along. Something of more than usual moment had happened to disturb his ordinarily placidly befogged mind.

"Just as I thought-just what I expected. (Curse that rock!) Saw it all a month ago, and ain't been sober enough since to know what to do."

Another stumble, and this time a plunge forward into the mud, followed by a labored resumption of the perpendicular.

"This is a cursed mess for a fact! Poor girl, poor girl. She's fine gold, and white as quartz. (Damn such a trail!) Sticks by me in the squarest manner-me, a whiskey-soaked, gambling old card sharp. She don't care a chip for me, either. That's what lays me out cold. I knew it, too, years ago. Oh! you'll blow off, will you? Take that, then," and the battered old hat was pulled viciously forward, far down over the bushy grey eyebrows. Then he struggled up the steep trail again.

"She's clean grit. It takes sand to stay by a way-down old rake like me, when she knows she has only to say the word, let in the law sharps, and get shet of me. I'd never kick.

God knows that I love her, though. Yes, she said that I did, too. Poor girl, poor Nellie! This is a hell of a mess for a fact!" and the grimy hand ran nervously through his grey hair as he pulled himself out of a mud-hole, and plodded wearily on.

"Blames herself for not loving me, too! Great Scott! I am a loveable old soak! I am calculated to keep the love of a decent woman. I am a holy terror, I am, damn me!" and with a derisive laugh he paused. "But she does love Southack, that's a cold fact. Thought he'd bluff, did he? Well, he weakened when she showed her hand. Takes sand even to do that sometimes.