looked as if they had been that way for some thousands of years.

"It's the spring," said Elkins, when asked about the phenomenon. "You can't ever tell what a spring will do. It's liable to burst out again any time, and the only safe way was to move well away from it. We'll all feel safer and more content with the new plan of things, I feel sure."

Certainly Elkins felt safer once the last grave had been robbed, its stone removed, and the mound stamped out of existence, but his satisfaction was short-lived. The people insisted upon calling the new burying ground the "graveyard of Elkinsburg." Elkins gently tried to dissuade them from the use of so glaring a misnomer, but failed miserably. He next tried bullying, but found that worse, as it only fixed the name more tenaciously, and made talk -which was not what he wanted. He tried argument, but could not deny that, as the graveyard was a by-product of Elkinsburg, it belonged to Elkinsburg, so he was at his wit's end. Truly, "distance lent enchantment," and as time went by, the people grew more and more sentimental concerning the lonely and silent city, and made far more frequent pilgrimages than had ever been their custom when it formed a part of their local horizon. Matters finally got so bad that the town paper devoted a portion of its space to the doings in, about and concerning the "Graveyard of Elkinsburg."

The situation was extremely desperate -even the popularity of the famous medicated spring was beginning to wane. As a last resort, Elkins called the "first settler" to his assistance, and he and Hawkins spent hours in cautious conversation. Then Hawkins disappeared. He was gone for a month, and when he returned, he startled the people of Elkinsburg by announcing that he had started a town for himself over near the new graveyard. He stated that the new town was a very young town, in fact less than one week old, and that he had named it "Hawkinsdale" in honor of its single living resident.

"Town's small yit, gents," said Hawkins, "but it's well laid out, and everybody's welcome. So fer, I've nothin' in the way of industries and attractions but the graveyard, but they'll come in time, and I'm a-diggin' me a well."

Sure enough, when the Elkinsburg citizens visited the graveyard, they found Hawkins' shanty near it and divers furrows plowed here and there in parallels and right angles, which Hawkins proudly pointed out as squares, streets and alleys.

"This whole block," said he, "I've set aside fer school purposes-nothin like eddication fer the young. This here block on "B" street is fer church purposesthat's fer the benefit of the old folks, the timid and sickly, and the women. If we wants a public square, we kin have it, er two of 'em, if we wants 'em, fer look there!" Hawkins sweepingly indicated the long, level, flat of prairie which stretched away before him in limitless reaches. "Did you ever see prettier land 'an that?"

The people said they had not, and Hawkins continued: "Right through the middle of that stretch I'm a-goin' to lay out Hawkins avenue, which will really have its start at the Hawkinsdale graveyard, and she'll

"But that's the Elkinsburg graveyard," said some one. "Surely, you don't

mean

"Not by a jugful it ain't," said Hawkins. "It used to be, but Elkinsburg disowned it and cast it out, and, presto! along comes me and my town an' we adopts it, we does-it's company fer us an' it's our graveyard. See there I've tacked a sign up."

The astonished citizens looked, and there, scrawled upon a broad pine board were the words: "Hawkinsdale Graveyard." They hurried to Elkins and informed him of the new town and its summary appropriation of the cemetery, but he only smiled a peculiar smile, and said he wished the new town well. All that day he whistled merrily.

Such an attitude seemed almost a sacrilege, and the people, while they knew no harm could come to their dead, felt far from satisfied, and went about possessed by a strange, unpleasant feeling of loss. Often they looked longingly off over the plain in the direction of the new graveyard and the new town with its one inhabitant. But they were to be further alienated.

When the Elkinsburg paper came out, the people were painfully amazed to find

the familiar heading changed. At the top of the column devoted to graveyard items appeared in bold type: "Hawkinsdale Graveyard." A sickening sense of desolation came over the people. Again they sought Elkins, who was solicitous, but knew nothing? Next they interviewed. the editor. That gentleman stated that it was by order of Mr. Hawkins and that, in view of the fact that Elkinsburg was ten miles from the graveyard and Hawkinsdale right at it, the latter name was more fitting and appropriate. "Beside this reason," said the editor complacently, "there is nothing in a name, after all."

Awed by such logic, the people went sadly away. They strolled down to the spring and drank deep of its waters and sighed as they saw their rueful faces reflected in the nickeled drinking cups.

Meanwhile, each issue of the town paper recounted in flaunting headlines the many virtues of the medicated spring and the unsurpassed advantages of Elkinsburg with its wealth of health and happiness, but while the people responded, it was but feebly, and their laughter had a wistful ring in it.

Elkins felt rather than saw the gloom, and tried to shake off a foreboding of evil which tenaciously gripped him, but he could not, and one morning the blow came. Strolling leisurely along, his attention was attracted to a squad of men busily engaged in tearing down the house of one of the citizens, and piling it, piece by piece, upon wagons which stood in waiting. Elkins hurried up.

"What does this mean, Gilder?" he asked, sharply.

The man hung his head sheepishly, and nodded toward his wife, who began weeping violently.

"Oh, Mr. Elkins, it's Pinkie B., you know. It's all on account of the little darlin' a-sleepin' so lonely and fergot off there in Hawkinsdale! 'S long as I knowed the buryin' ground was a part of Elkinsburg, I didn't seem to mind so much, but since the new town's come along and gobbled the graveyard and Pinkie B. along with it, I jist can't stand it any longer, and so we-we're a-goin' to her!"

"What!" gasped the dumbfounded Elkins, "you don't mean to say you're going over there to camp by the graveyard!

Why, there's no town there! What'll you live on and how'll you get water? Think of the medicated spring-you'll all die if you go to that place! It's not healthythere's nothing there but empty prairie!"

"It's as much as this place was when you first struck it, Bud Elkins," said the woman defiantly, "and it's got water, tooIke Hawkins has struck a reg'lar underground river of water, and he says it's the same as the medicated spring and there's more of it and then-then there's Pinkie B., so we're a-goin.""

Go, they did, leaving Mr. Elkins marveling upon the far-reaching results of a certain little scheme he had developed with the assistance of Mr. Hawkins some weeks before Hawkinsdale came into being. Still marveling, he mounted his horse and hurried away over the plain to the new town of Hawkinsdale.

He found its owner and founder busily engaged in conducting a gurgling stream of water into a number of little ditches which traversed the grateful ground. The sight made Elkins sick with the dread of future calamity.

"Ike," he said accusingly, "where did you get that water?"

"Got her outer that hole there on the side of the hill," said Ike, as he carefully steered the wayward course of a merry little rivulet. "Shouldn't wonder but she's the great-gran-daddy of your spring, and perhaps the Mississippi, from the strength of her. She'll irrigate ground fer a damn big community."

"Look here, Ike," said Hawkins, advancing threateningly, "I want to know if you call this square dealing?"

"Call what square dealin'?" asked Ike, leaning on his shovel and blinking at Elkins. "What d' y' mean?"

"You know well enough what I mean. This town's gone far enough-a damn sight farther 'n ever we intended it should go. You know what our agreement was as well as I do. This was to be a graveyard town and nothing else. Do you hear -and nothing else! Here you've gone and tapped a river and one of my families is on the way here now-drawn here by that infernal boneyard yonder. It's got to stop, I tell you!"

"Bud," said Ike, slowly, "I ain't broke my agreement. It was part of the plan

"Then that's all there is to it," said Ike, resuming his work. "I tapped that there hill, and the good God's soaked me and Hawkinsdale most abundantly. If sorrowing folks wants to be near their dead, or to live by 'em, I can't help it, and you can't, neither."

Elkins sneered. "You're a nice sort to talk of God and His bounty, Hawkins. Am I to understand that you intend to go on with this town?"

Ike was thoughtful for a moment, then he said: "I'm a-goin' to let everything take its own course, 'ceptin' this gladsome stream of water."

He sadly resumed his work, and Elkins, after watching him a moment, turned, with an imprecation, and rode away. On the way back to his own town, he met two more of his citizens with their pine houses, their household goods, gods and children en route for Hawkinsdale, and although he had sharp interviews with each, they kept on their way.

When he arrived at Elkinsburg he hardly recognized it. Houses were going down upon all sides, and it looked like a cyclone had struck it. The stampede once started, the secret yearning of the people found vent in action. Men and women shouted and sang as they demolished their homes and made ready for life in the new town which nestled under the benign and peaceful influences of the dead.

In vain did Elkins rave and storm; in vain did he entreat and threaten. At last, in desperation, he offered to move the graveyard back to its old location at his own expense-the people laughed in his face.

"It's no use, Bud," said one man; "that graveyard's been juggled about enough.

We're all a-goin' to settle right around it and sorter protect it until the last one of us has got tired of pure air and good water, and tumbled right into it. I reckon then none of us 'll care much what becomes of it."

With a shrug, Bud Elkins walked down to the medicated spring and began drinking the waters. All that day he sat there, and for a number of succeeding days, and drank the waters. And all of the time the hammering and wrenching and shouting and creaking could be heard behind him in the fickle town.

Then the sounds ceased, and Elkins, stealing a cautious look over his shoulder, saw only an unbroken waste where once his town had stood.

Sighing, he dipped another cup of water, which he was about to drink, when the sound of footsteps arrested him. Turning, he saw Ike Hawkins advancing.

Sadly and dreamily, Elkins covered Ike with a six-shooter.

"Stop right where you are, Ike. It's not my desire to kill you, though you deserve it, and I won't if you'll go back to your graves and your town. This spring's mine, and you're trespassing upon my property."

"But, Bud," faltered Ike, "I've come to make ye a present of the best business block in Hawkinsdale. I don't bear no malice

"Mr. Hawkins," Elkins' voice was slow and cold, "you heard what I said, I believe. I'm here drinking the waters, and here I'm going to remain. I'll give you just one minute to start back to the boneyard."

"But, Bud, damn it, listen! It's a corner lot, and I'll elect ye Mayor er somethin'."

Elkins carefully aimed his revolver. "Dig!" he commanded. Then in a few seconds he shouted: "I'll keep you covered till you get over the hill, and-Ike!" "Well ?"

"I want you to tell all your citizens I'm here drinking the waters, but that they're not healthy any longer for any one but me!"

T

IME was when the lodges of the Piutes reached from the great lake of salt to the seas of the setting sun, and when the braves chased the nimble deer from the great eastern mountains to the flower valleys of the West. And on the shores of the Silver Lake, called by the paleface "Donner," because upon them lay heavy the hand of the Lake Spirit, dwelt a portion of the tribe renowned for their bravery and wisdom. And in those days of long ago the mantle of the Lake Spirit was ofttimes seen in the skies, when the nights were long, and the fairest maidens and bravest youths were called to her sunless depths to be her slaves.

In the lodges by the Silver Lake dwelt a mighty chief, Thunder Cloud. His was the foremost step in the battle and in the chase. The bravest warriors fell before him, and his lodge boasted the scalps of the greatest chiefs that met the might of the Piutes in the fight. When his bow sounded and the feathered arrow sped, vain was it for the deer to spring forward, or for the terrible grizzly bear to offer further fight. And the wondering tribe beholding said that in Thunder Cloud slept the arm of Death. Thunder Cloud, growing tired of triumphs which none shared, cast his eagle eyes on Flower-ofthe-Mountain, the fairest daughter that the tribe had reared for many marches. Straight and slender was she as the reeds that murmur by the river, and as fair as the sunrise in summer. But Flowerof-the-Mountain trembled when she beheld the hard eyes of Thunder Cloud upon her, for her heart called to the pleadings of Golden Song, the dreamer. Not his the hand to slay the straining deer and glory in the death dance, but rather did he

dream of strange pictures and portray his dreams in melodies that stilled the war lust of the braves and made the old men forget that youth had departed.

And now the grim Thunder Cloud strove to train his war-charged accents to the softer cadence of love, but often longed to seize the maiden and compel her yielding, while he strove to make his voice as gentle as the West Wind. And Flowerof-the-Mountain marked the eyes that gleamed with the forked lightning and tremblingly confided her fears to Golden Song. And he, the hapless one, his hands untrained to the use of the war-bow or the tomahawk, could but look on and lament the fate that had turned the eyes of Thunder Cloud to his beloved. And often did the grim chief seek to draw the youth into a fatal quarrel, but Golden Song eluded him with careless speech and light song, although his heart burned to speed the arrow to Thunder Cloud's heart.

And one day the chiefs met in solemn council around the fire, and the peace-pipe passed from man to man till the circle was complete. Then in their wisdom it was ordered that Thunder Cloud and Golden Song compete for the fair hand of Flowerof-the-Mountain. Many there were who wished the songster well, but their hearts chilled within them as their eyes dwelt upon the mighty frame and kingly spirit of the chief.

Flower-of-the-Mountain heard, and in her terror fled to the banks of the Silver Lake. And as she knelt upon the banks, there arose out of the water a woman of strange beauty, with hair like the silk of corn and eyes blue as the skies of sumFlower-of-the-Mountain remained rooted to the spot, for she knew that this was the dreaded Lake Spirit, whom none

mer.

Spirit, and her voice was as the wind that ripples the water and breathes through the nodding wreathes, "I know that Thunder Cloud seeks you, and that your heart is welded to that of Golden Song. Nor is there escape for you unless I take your part. But you must accept my help willingly. If I help you against the might of Thunder Cloud, then must you and Golden Song become my willing slaves and dwell forever beneath the waters of the Silver Lake. Many will your tasks be and I am a hard mistress, but together will you two be always, and what you suffer at my hands will not be as the years you will pass with Thunder Cloud, if you accept not my offer."

Flower-of-the-Mountain hears the soft, singing words, and as her mind conjures up her life with Thunder Cloud, and what the rule of the grim chief means, she tremblingly consents to the demands of the beautiful Spirit. And when Golden Song appears and his love reveals to him. her compact, he also promises devotion to the mistress that is to be.

The day of the trial comes, and the braves went their way to the Silver Lake to see the contests between Thunder Cloud and Golden Song. First they bend their war-bows and send arrows true to the mark, and the arrows of Golden Song divide the arrows of Thunder Cloud from the target's center. And when the tomahawk is thrown, again does the arm of the dreamer prove more certain than that of the chief. Furious, Thunder Cloud strives again and again, but ever is he foiled like the attack of a child on a brave. At last he turns raging, and grapples with the man he has always despised. And the wondering tribe sees Golden Song seize his rival in a grip like the mountain bear, and crushes him till the creaking bones voice their melancholy protest, and finally what was once the great war chief of the Piutes falls a shattered, struggling wreck at the

feet of the man he would have slain.

A song of triumph bursts from the friends of Golden Song, but the song suddenly dies in their throats as Golden Song clasps Flower-of-the-Mountain to his breast, and together they approach the lake. As one man, the whole tribe knows that they have become devoted to the Lake Spirit, knows that for her help they are to sacrifice life when the birds sing of love and the blood of youth leaps high.

Silently the tribe watches the two approach the lake and enter its silver embrace. The waters seem to welcome them and rise until they threaten to overflow and swamp the people. And suddenly from the center of swirling waters is seen to emerge a woman of wondrous beauty. Her hair of gold streams behind her like shafts of light, and her blue eyes flash like a thousand lightnings as she turns them upon the terror-stricken tribe. Her bare arms fold around the lovers, and she gathers them to her breast, as if even she feels for the life they are giving up for love.

For a moment she stands revealed, then a wall of water shoots across the vision, and when it subsides, all is still, and the Spirit has disappeared. As she passes, her laughter, full of mocking and contempt, rings in the ears of the stricken people. And when they turn to where the twitching body of Thunder Cloud was lying, behold, it has also vanished.

Sometimes when the evening shadows lie long on the banks, and the moon has only commenced to gild the shimmering waters of the Silver Lake, the lonely watcher may perchance see Flower-of-the Mountain and Golden Song rise from the waters and stroll together on the banks. Their arms enwrap each other, and they speak as lovers as they slowly wander over the paths where once in the long ago they strolled and spoke their yearning. And the Piutes know that the Lake Spirit still feels compassion for the lovers that passed to her rule, rather than dwell on earth apart.