ahem!-that some day there may be an increase in the family, and little fledglings grow venturesome, and if the parents happen to be away for a moment, I don't doubt you'll be a faithful little mother, my dear, but business is business, and worms do not always come to one's picking, have you thought, if one should happen to lose his balance, of the cruel fall to the bare rocks below? It makes my feathers fairly stand on end to think of it!"

"My little fledglings, should I be blessed with any, must first of all learn the two great lessons of life,-obedience to parents and trust in an overruling Providence," said the brown bird piously, forgetting all her saucy airs.

At this all of the other birds flew away with a great twitter and chatter; for it is not good manners in the bird-world to give utterance to the inmost sentiments of the bird-heart.

The nest had been built, and in due season there were four speckled eggs in it. For two long weeks the brown bird nad been brooding over these, relieved only for short intervals by her mate, and at length there had been a thrill in the tiny spheres, and one of the delicate shells had burst asunder, revealing an ugly, skinny little head, all beak and bulging eyes.

"A magnificent creature, Mrs. Brown Bird! Truly as superb a young creature as ever broke shell in this troublous world: And I'm sure, ahem! that you cannot have failed to mark the striking resemblance between him and me. Indeed, a son after my own heart! I must be off to tell the news to the Linnets and Jack Wren. You know Mrs. Jenny has expectations. If, on my way back, I come across a fat dragon-fly or beetle, you shall have the legs and wings for your supper, my love."

It had been fully an hour since the brown bird's mate departed, and above the nest a fierce hawk was soaring, ever in narrower circles, with his eyes fixed on the wee structure clinging to the bare boughs,

where the mother-bird, terror stricken but faithful to her trust, crouched low in the nest.

The young woman came out of the cabin and stood upon the little porch, cast

VOL. XXXIV - 2

ing one look toward the west where the sun was slowly sinking to the sea; then she took a field-glass from the nail on which it hung and looked long and wistfully in the direction of the valley and along the road which wound like a silver thread between green fields and blossoming orchards. This done, she returned the glass to its place, and trilling a gay melody, loitered to tie a wandering vine and idly to pluck withered sweet-pea blossoms, scattering them on the ground.

In the brush beside the live-oak two fierce eyes followed her every movement, and in the air above the great bird soared, secure of his prey.

Richard Davenport, having delivered his berries at the commission-store in town

and completed his round of errands, had

turned homeward at an earlier hour than usual that afternoon. Vague apprehensions troubled him, telling him that it was not prudent to leave his young wife alone on the solitary ranch, so far from any neighbors. Should sudden illness overtake her, or some accident occur she would be helpless until his return. Yet he healthy mind's sound logic. smiled away these misgivings with a healthy mind's sound logic. Mary was careful; Mary was in excellent health. In

her round of household duties she found little time to note his absence, so she had often assured him, and as the busy day drew to a close it was a joy to look forward to his coming. To-day he had a little sur prise for her. Since she had been unable to accompany him he had fallen into a habit of celebrating these lonely trips by bringing her some small assurance of his love and remembrance. He frequently looked behind him to see if that particular brown parcel was safe.

As he left the town behind him, and the road crept between tall evergreen hedges, varied by an occasional stretch of avenue where pepper-trees drooped their graceful foliage, and the perfume of citrus-blossoms was heavy on the air, he whistled cheerily, and his smart young team broke into a brisk trot. Hedges gave way to wire fences, beyond which were open fields dotted with occasional orchards, where cozy cottages and farm buildings announced the farmer's prosperity, and neighbors greeted him with hearty saluta

tions. Occasionally he passed some one riding more slowly.

As he approached the foot of the gulch he checked his horses' speed; for now they were about to begin the long, hard grade, where a wise reserve would insure the better progress. Here he came unexpectedly upon a body of armed men on horseback, a silent, stern procession. One of them had dismounted and was examining the moist ground.

66

What's up, Sam?" asked Davenport, for in the determined face of one he recognized the sheriff of the adjoining county. "A half-breed, José Gomez, butchered a family last night. We've tracked him to this gulch. He's making for the ridge trail, and if he reaches it he 'll have a fair chance of getting away. Do you know this road, Davenport? We're in for a bloody tussle, for he's a devil of a fellow, and armed!"

66 Know the road?" At the sheriff's first words Davenport had sprung from his wagon, staggering like a blind man as he touched the ground. Know the road! The road that led straight to the lonely cabin on the heights, where a loving wife awaited his coming, directly in the path of this human hyena!

"Yes, Sam; I know the way."

All the while he was trying to steady his nerves, to think clearly, to reason out the best method of overtaking and entrapping the fiend, before Mary should so much as suspect his presence. God! if it should be too late!

"There's an old trail--overgrown. I think I can find it. Give me a gun and two of your best men. Take my wagon and come up the road with the rest."

The sheriff looked doubtful over this proposition to intrust the leadership of such an enterprise to a man over whose face the pallor of fright was plainly spread, this trembling, trembling, stammering, shrinking figure. Something in Davenport's eyes compelled him. Two men were told off, a weapon hastily handed over, and the three plunged into the dense chaparral, Davenport leading the way. They forded the little brook a dozen times, threaded a maze of bushes and vines, trampled a tiny meadow starred with wild flowers, and at last reached a point where

a rocky stairway began to scale a precipitous ledge.

Here the sheriff's deputies hesitated. Only a practiced eye could follow the line of the long abandoned trail. Davenport, cool and collected now, pressed on, far in advance. One of the men turned back. The other, looking at the broken trail, the steep ascent, and then at the resolute man climbing upward, followed.

Storm and flood had in places well-nigh effaced the ancient pathway. To the deputy, laboring for breath, searching the ledge for a secure rest for his foot, painfully helping himself around sharp turns, it seemed as if the feet of his leader were winged, so rapidly did he scale the face of the precipice. Davenport leaped desperately from point to point or helped himself along the slippery wall where the trail had been washed away, and above the din of his panting lungs and throbbing heart sounded ever the ominous refrain: “If it should be too late! Too late!"

Before him rose a blank wall thirty feet in height. All vestiges of the trail had disappeared. The gnarled boughs of the oak-tree that sheltered his home overhung it, and looking upward he could see a dark object wheeling in the blue. The sound of a sweet voice trilling a familiar song brought new courage to his faltering heart, new energy to his exhausted body. There, before him, as high as his breast, was a splinter of rock, beyond that a crevice, a root and a small clump of brush higher up,-flimsy holds upon which to stake a man's life, but he did not hesitate.

The hawk ceased her circling and suddenly darted downward. The bloodstained creature lurking in the shadow at the live-oak's base, saw in the cabin a chance for food and shelter, and a fortress in which he might intrench himself against his pursuers until opportunity should afford him escape to the ridge trail. Already he could hear the clatter of a wagon, noisily climbing the grade, a noise which drowned the sound of a dropping rock and a snapping twig near at hand. With a stealthy, catlike movement he laid down the rifle he bore and unsheathed a long, shining blade with a rusty stain, taking a single step forward.

That instant a shot rung out in the stillness. The bird of prey, with an angry scream, soared away through the heavens, and another awful cry was swallowed up in the depths of the gulch, as a shapeless thing tumbled backward over the cliff to find a lodging in the chaparral below.

Mary Davenport's start of terror gave away to a sob of relief, as she hastened to meet her husband.

"Richard! You frightened me so! And your clothes are torn, and your hands cut and bleeding. Oh, what does it mean?"

"Only a panther, dear. A hunting

party had been tracking him, and I took a hand in the game. They are coming up the road with my wagon. I'm sorry to have startled you, dear wife. Lie down and rest, while I go to meet them."

Placing his arm around her, he led her into the house. Up in the oak the brown bird settled happily in her nest, while her belated mate made haste to cover his shortcomings with a tale of the blood that stained the face of the cliff, slyly wiping his beak the while. In the garden the flowers whispered together and shivered, and above the roof the white rose gleamed like the Star of Bethlehem.

T

HE people of all mountainous countries seem to be singers by nature, but none surpass the inhabitants of the Austrian Alps for sweetness and strength of voice. All day long, and far into the night, the traveler in the Inn or Etch valleys, or, rather, those valleys tributary to them, hears from the grass-covered hills and rocky peaks the song of some sennerin, or hunter; often two voices from different points will join in concert or sing to lively airs those witty quatrains composed at the moment, brimming over with. fun or full of sentiment.

The frequented valleys, such as the Inn. or Etch, or even the Ziller, have of late years become so much the home of the tourist that to a great extent the pretty customs of a past generation have been abandoned, or are only pursued to attract attention and gain; but anywhere away from the beaten track the sweet music of hackbrettle and zither, the jodel and impromptu song, greet one in pure, unpaidfor melody. It is of the schnaderhuepfeln, or those improvisations, epigrams with neat turnings and double meanings, which one hears within doors at feast and dance, that I write. The national, hunting, romantic, and love songs of the Austrian Alps are familiar to all, having been translated and sung as long ago as the days of our grandmothers; but of those little children of the moment, the schnaderhuepfeln, there have been no records in English and few in German.

With my friend Josef, a native of St. Jodoc, but now a carter of ice in Innsbruck, I started in the early morning, afoot, on the road to Zirl, past the Martinswand, and then, rising by a circuitous path, wended my way by shrines and tempting taverns over the mountains to Seefeld and on to Scharnitz, a village or "little spot," (Flecken, as the Austrians quaintly term a small settlement,) near the Bavarian border. It was the sixth day of January, the Feast of the Three Kings, and there was to be a dance at the tavern

and a feast of knödeln and würste after it. Josef's sweetheart lived here, and to see her I had come this day's tramp through the soft snow.

The sun had long since gone down, and the dance had already begun, when we entered the guest-room. A hackbrettle (an instrument somewhat like a xylophone), a zither, and a fiddle, constituted the orchestra. A moment the music stopped, then a rollicking melody was played, to which a young fellow, with his girl standing beside him, sang:

"That kisses make hair grow,

Is false, I declare,

Else sure had my sweetheart
A face full of hair."

He dodged his head just in time to escape a slap offered by his fair companion, who would not be induced to dance with him again, much to the general merriment. Five minutes of dancing followed, then a pause as before, and Josef took his stand at the "musician's table," and turning toward the last singer, who stood alone, he sang, while a merry twinkle showed in his eye:

"Don't be so sad, boy,

If she did treat you rough,
The world is like a hen-roost,-
Has pullets quite enough."

In a moment the first singer answered: "My girl has ta'en her love away;

I'm easier now, I guess;

Won't have to go so oft to church,

Nor half so oft confess."

This turned the laugh on the girl, who sat pouting on a bench. She did not long want a champion though; a young fellow from the Mittenwald went up to her and took her out to dance. She tossed her head in utmost disdain as she passed her old beau, who by this time had found another girl, with a better temper, let us hope, than the first.

It is seldom that the girl ever sings at these dances more than to join in some refrain to her partner's song; but the fair maiden, with her new champion beside