Rice

D

AN BRISCO, bearing the nickname of "Bricky," because of the peculiar shade of his topknot, the young salesman at Howell Brothers, dealers in groceries, fruits and delicatessen, whistled merrily to himself as he opened a fresh crate of Flaming Tokays, which had just arrived that morning from Lodi.

Quite a fine lot of fruit it was, the choicest from Central California's vineyards, and so beautiful to the eye that it excited even the admiration of a dull, matter-of-fact fellow like Bricky, to whose aesthetic sense, if he had any, beauty seldom appealed unless it was that to be found in a pretty, feminine face.

"By jingo, this lot's a beauty,"

he exclaimed enthusiastically, as he lifted aloft for admiration a huge bunch, which, with a companion cluster, filled the entire basket. "Hello! what's this?" he mused, his tone changing as he discovered carefully tucked away in the bottom of the basket, under the basket, under a richly-colored autumn grape-leaf a little folded slip of cream-colored notepaper. On it was penned in a dainty feminine. hand the following brief lines:

"These grapes were packed by Marie Lewis, Lockeford P. P. O., whose hands are too pret'y to be soiled."

"Oh, ho! Some pretty girl with

hazel eyes," thought romantic Bricky, "would like to correspond with a gentleman with means; object, matrimony.".

Slyly looking about him to see that he was not observed, he cautiously slipped the little note into his vest pocket and resumed his task of unpacking the remaining baskets, but not without carefully examining the contents of each and every one, presumably in the hope of finding some more correspondence of a sentimental nature. None of the others, however, contained the slightest missive for any one who was on the lookout for a pair of pretty white hands and hazel eyes.

"Hey, there," cried one of the other clerks, finally, as Bricky's lack of haste that morning was the occasion of comment among his companions, "seems to me you're a long time unpacking them grapes over yonder. I s'pose you don't know that there's a load of clingstone peaches comin' in in a few hours?"

"Oh, hang your old peaches! I'm going to brace the boss to take my vacation to-morrow," he answered, looking bored.

"I can see his finish when he braces the firm just now," chuckled one of the clerks at the smoked meat counter, who was slicing a pound of chipped beaf for a lady customer.

When Bricky came to the office late that afternoon and marched in with a woebegone expression on his countenance, and explained that he was suffering with nervous prostration from over-work, and that his physician had recommended a rest and change of scene, Silas Howell, the senior member of the firm, hesitated some little time before granting the desired privilege.

"You'll be sure to show up a week from to-day, I suppose?" queried queried the boss. "I can hardly spare you just now, but I guess we can manage somehow. All right; go ahead, but I'll depend on your coming back a week from to-morrow without fail."

"Thanks, awfully," was all that the delighted Bricky could answer. "Where lave you decided to spend your week?" asked the boss, with whom the young man was a prime favorite.

Well-er-I'm a bit undecided, sir. Perhaps I'll take a run up Lodi way, and visit my uncle on a fruit ranch near Lockeford."

"Well, be good to yourself, and keep out of mischief," was the boss's parting injunction as Bricky betook himself out of the latter's sanctum.

Bricky entered upon his last day's duties with a vim, meanwhile whistling in supreme content. There was not a lazy streak in him, and no vices to keep him from doing his very best. He wasn't fat. If he had been he might have been lazy. He was tall, thin, brown-eyed, red-haired and muscular. His apparent lassitude and indolence which developed recently was attributed to by his companions as being the result of a run-down constitution caused by overwork.

Now, the real reason why he was so preoccupied was because of his morbid curiosity concerning the romantic bit of correspondence which he had discovered a few days ago, and which aroused this sense in him to an alarming degree. He was simply burning with curiosity to see who was this pretty miss with hazel eyes, "whose hands were too pretty to be soiled."

So accordingly, the next morning, he boarded the train and was soon speeding as fast as the iron horse could carry him through vineyards hanging heavy with their weight of purple and crimson clusters. Pleasant anticipations crowded thickly upon his mind of the fair unknown who penned the brief note which he found at the bottom of a grape basket but three days ago. How soon would he be permitted to gaze with rapt admiration upon that pretty face with its hazel eyes! What if she should not take a fancy to him?

He never had thought of that before. He would not hint about the object of his visit until he discovered things coming his way.

The Sunday-schools of Lockeford were holding their annual outing in a picturesque grove along the Mokelumne kiver the day of his arrival, and as this was a great event in the social world of the little village, it was hither that our hero wended his way in the hope of catching a glimpse of the unknown damsel who was wearing her heart away and soiling her pretty white hands packing grapes in some unromantic and poky oid vineyard.

The dancing пoor was perhaps as good a place as any to study the taces of the young people, and from some point of vantage in the crowd he could easily command a view of the entire floor. "If she is young and pretty," thought he, "she certainly will take part in the dance." Bricky watched and waited, closely scrutinizing every feminine face that glided by him in the dizzy whirl of the waltz; but he could not find one that answered the meagre description of the note and the girl that he had pictured in his own imagination. What was more puzzling, there was none in the crowd who looked as though she lacked attentions from young men.

Finally, taking a chance shot at a lanky young man, about eighteen, who was smoking a cigarette and perfuming the surrounding atmosphere, Bricky took the young fellow into his confidence, and asked him in a low voice whether he knew a young lady in Lockeford by the name of Marie Lewis. "I think she is considered very pretty, and has hazel eyes," he ventured, adding cautiously, "and she works at one of the vineyards here packing grapes for the markets.”"

"Sure, now, pardner, you're not

joshing?" the other replied, looking dubiously at Bricky, as he tried hard to suppress a smile.

"No; I'm in dead earnest. Do you know the young lady?"

"Well, yes, I should say I did. Ha ha! she's the crankiest old maid in this here town, just daffy on the matrimonial subject. She's always writin' poetry and sweet things to the fellers in the hope of catchin' a man. She ain't been writin' to you, pardner, is she?" asked the comer, growing suspcious.

new

"Oh, no," replied Bricky, assuming an indifferent air, but coloring perceptibly. "I merely had a curiosity to see the lady, having heard about this peculiar weakness of hers."

"Well, she ought to be here somewhere, as she usually turns out at the picnic. Yes, there she is, sure enough," said the stranger, indicating with his finger a stout, masculine-looking woman, not a day under forty-five, with short gray hair, hazel eyes and attired in a very masculine fashion.

He stole a swift glance at her hands. They were pretty and even daintily formed, but they seemed so out of keeping with the rest of her figure.

Bricky stood for a moment and stared like one in a trance. Then, edging his way cautiously through the crowd so as to escape notice, he made a bee-line for the Southern Pacific Railway station and boarded. the next train going South.

His Stockton friends were greatly surprised to see him back so soon, but Bricky explained-he was always very clever at explaining things that he felt the need of a more decided change of climate, and that he had decided to spend the remainder of his vacation camping in the High Sierras in the vicinity of Independence Lake.

TH

HERE was a movement in the cactus bushes, a scatter of dewdrops collected on the hardy leaves, then silence and the breathless stillness that precedes dawn.

Kingsley lay flat on his stomach, alert, yet conscious of a stiffness that ran through his limbs, and a growing thirst, held in check by the fear of discovery should he uncork his flask.

A creepy sensation quivered along his flesh as the gray plains took on a lighter hue, as each separate clump of vegetation merged into a ghastly whole, wraiths in a world of halfborn lights.

Gritting his hands into the sandy floor of the plain, he changed his position. On a level with his eyes, the stubby cactus roots, a phalanx of uncompromising capillary surfaces, offered him a poor vista for the growing impatience of the lagging hours. The glow of the chase had subsided, and vim and vigor had lessened since the night before, when, mad with the contagious excitement of the townsmen. he had jumped on somebody else's bronco, and, following the unorganized band, made for the open country.

Now, the Texas bronco has a distrust of strangers and takes a wicked delight in depositing the rider at inopportune times upon whatever happens to be near by, and on this particular occasion, it chanced to be the cactus bushes, and the distance 20 miles from town.

The pursuing force had scattered in all directions, so Kingsley decided to wait until some one reconnoitered his way.

His muscles relaxed, and his mind drifted back to the last term; to the recent impressions of Harvard life: to the jolly crowd that had waved

him off to Texas and the West; to the first taste of existence untrammeled; to the land of highway robbery and high stakes; to the rolling freedom of cactus studded plains and the silence and rustle of the grass bending prairies.

A vibration, unmistakable, swift, firm, like the on-beat of hoofs, telegraphed its message through the ground.

Rearing cautiously, the watcher peered over his ambush into the grayness beyond.

Limned against the flushing sky, a stalwart figure rose like a grim Colossus. Mile on mile stretched the dreary plain, and the galloping horseman, taking the closely packed bushes with bold leaps and plunges, was the only living thing in sight.

Kingsley felt the blood swell in his wrists and his throat go dry with sudden excitement. He gripped his six-shooter, ran his eye along the site, and stood ready, his knees shaking, his finger trembling along the trigger.

On came the rider, swinging loosely in the saddle, the bronco avoiding with nice delicacy the sharp, prickly points of the spreading leaves.

Dawn showed crimson and brassy along the eastern horizon. Kingsley braced himself, and steadying as the horseman approached, cried in a voice harsh and unreal in his Own ears:

"Halt! or I'll shoot!"

The broncho came to a stand-still by a series of jumps sufficient to unseat any ordinary equestrian.

Unblinking Justice regarded the man in the saddle with stern disapproval.

"Halt!" repeated Kingsley, this time with less emphasis.

the

Raising himself lightly to pommel by means of the animal's mane, a tall, lean Texan fixed two cool eyes upon the tawny-haired Viking in the bush. Then, laughing with cynical derision, he cut a long strip of tobacco from a wad, and thrust it into his cheek, all the while regarding the commander with easy amusement. His boots were spattered, his spurs dripped red, and the beast's flanks showed evidence of a long journey.

"It's a lynchin' party, eh?" he inquired. The scornful inflection sent Kingsley's color a deeper hue, and changing his weight to the other foot, he answered doggedly: "I am one of the party."

The Texan dismounted, and, leaning against his steed, entered into amicable discourse, all the while ignoring the other's unfriendly attitude.

"Wa'll," he said, cutting off another strip, his fine eyes fixed on the wad in meditation. "You ain't fit to join a posse, if it's a shootin' of the same gang is your profession."

"What!" cried Kingsley, in quick alarm, "are you one of the party?" "Yep; I'm leader," answered the man laconically, "and, youngster,' he added, "it's better to lie low and shoot from the bush."

Kingsley's cheek was a dark scarlet, and dropping the borrowed weapon, he apologized with an awkward laugh.

"I forgot the other fellow's advantage, but you see it's my first man-hunt, and they said to shoot down at sight."

"Wa'll, my boy," patronized the Texan, "it's Hell on hoss stealing out here. But the devil with a start can lie low in them cactus, his hoss stretched alongside, and sniff at the sheriff and the chap new to Texas. One man with a gun ain't much." Kingsley shifted under the contemptuous regard.

"Haven't we any chance?" he asked in deep discouragement. "You

see," he explained, "it's a thoroughbred, and 1 expected to get to San Antonio by easy riding. I've bought some ranches, and one is to be a breeding farm, and Albion was to have sired a long line of the finest horse-flesh in these parts."

The listener gave a low laugh, and a sparkle of mirth flashed across his face.

"I know," he sympathized, "he was a whopper, and there ain't been a sneak deal like that since Texas Ben got his lead."

"Lynching is common out here," decided Kingsley, with the assertive wisdom of the tenderfoot.

"You bet," agreed the native born, his features elongated into sudden gravity. Advancing one step, ne grasped the college man by the arm, and said in peremptory tones:

"Now, you just listen to this!" A whistle, peculiar to a bird call, came from his parted lips.

"Loose-jawed, rigid with astonishment, Kingsley beheld an apparition spring from the ground. A horse and a boy stood but six feet away. Albion, his smooth coat sandsprinkled, his eyes bloodshot, his bit foam-flecked, gave a soft whinny as he recognized his master. Clinging to the bridle was a youth of eighteen, hatless, his torn shirt open at the throat, showing a heaving brown breast.

For one moment the blue eyes of the boy dwelt on the swart face of the Texan, and then fell before the terrible anger of the leader.

"What in Hell are you doin'? At it again, I suppose!" He strode over to the rumpled figure and swung the boy high into the air. He twisted the slight form, wringing and shaking him as a terrier would a rat.

"And so," he thundered, "you're a-courtin' lynchin'! And Mary Bell is home making fires, and the country round is flamin' for the son of Texan Ben! The tree is waitin' an' the noose is too good for a boy what has had his chance."