fresh with all the picturesque daintiness of the old colonial days.

I

The little museum on the ground floor contains many objects of colonial interest-including the attendant. do not know why it is, but museum attendants invariably remind me of cobwebs and reincarnation. Cobwebs -because they are often very old and gray, and reincarnation, because they seem to have lived and died with the very antiques over which they have charge.

Having spent a few moments in pa

triotic adoration before the dear old Liberty Bell, I passed upstairs into the banquet room. Here, with its rows of colonial pictures and portraits, its pretty, white window casements, and its dark, polished floor, one feels at once the romantic atmosphere of days gone by. It takes no effort of imagination to see the hall bright with lighted candelabra, and to hear the Virginia Reel, gay with the twirl and twitter of crinolined belles and the laughter of elegant beaux.

gether

sources of great amusement to the cowboys of the Crescent O. No sooner had the speaker turned his back on his tormentors than the man called "Spike" seized a hot biscuit, and yelling, "I'm on, Dance Hall!" sent it spinning across the room. The missile landed squarely in the back of Jerry's hairless head, where it paused the fraction of a second as though undecided whether to stick there or not. No one could have truthfully sworn that it fell to the floor, for the good reason that not one remained in his seat long enough to see. Simultaneously with the biscuit's "smack," the bunk-house eating room was a scene of confusion. Like a flash, Jerry sprang to a bag of stale potatoes. Chairs clattered to the floor and men scrambled for their Stetsons.

"Take them spuds!" shrieked the enraged Jerry.

And more than one cowboy's laugh was cut short before he reached the outer air.

While this was going on in the puncher's quarters, Dennis McAll sat on the porch of his small, three-room house, his shoulders stooped, his hat pulled down low over his eyes. In his right hand he held an old corn-cob pipe, upon which he drew at intervals. Near by stood his horse, still

saddled, the bridle-reins dragging upon the ground. The foreman was waiting and listening. Once he glanced up to where the lights of the "Capitol," as the boys called the big house, gleamed on the crown of the hill. But his gaze fell again, and he sighed wearily. As range-boss of the largest ranch in Webb County, Dennis McAll was known and liked by every cattleman on the border. His popularity was due to an in-born talent to boss cow-punchers. Lack of education, a too generous nature and an inherent indifference to his material advancement had hindered his rising beyond a salaried man. But he loved the work. He had the friendship and confidence of his employer, Richard Carlton, and he was admired and obeyed by every man on the Crescent Ranch.

O

Suddenly the foreman straightened up, listening. Out of the darkness there had come to him a faint but familiar sound. It was a plaintive, childish voice, singing far down in the valley. Distinctly now the words floated up to him:

"A curse to all gold and all silver, too, And to all purty gals who won't prove true."

McAll rose and shook the ashes

from his pipe. "Just like her mammy," he muttered as he led his horse out to the corral.

"Listen! Thar's Coyote!"

The speaker was "Beany," a young cow-puncher who had acquired his nickname because of his extraordinary fondness and capacity for Mexican beans. He was sitting cross-legged before the bunk-house, a little apart from a score or more of his fellows, some of whom, like himself, reposed with their legs crossed under them, others squatted on their heels, while still others lounged indolently against the wall of the house. Conversation instantly ceased among the cowboys, cigarettes were taken from lips to be held in tough, sun-burned hands, and in the ensuing silence, not far down the trail, a clear, sweet voice rang out over the hill:

"And I'll go away to some distant land And thar I'll join some cowboy band. "I'll stay on trail till the day I die, And I'll cut my way whar the bullets fly."

Silence reigned for a moment; then, amid a clatter of hoofs, and a cloud of dust, Coyote thundered up the trail. As she passed the bunk-house, she waved her broad brimmed hat. and yelled: "Helloa, boys!"

"Evenin'!"
"Hey thar!"
"Ho thar!"

"Whoop-ee!"
"Howdy!"
"Yip-ah!"

"A, que Coyote!" "Wah-hoo!"

These and other greetings burst in chorus from the lounging cow-punch

ers.

"I calls thet ramp good singing," challenged the youth who had first heard Coyote's distant voice.

"So does I, Beany. I calls hit ramp good singing," agreed Gotch Lumsey, a young fellow with red hair and a crossed left eye. "And Gotch Lumsey's heerd singing, fellers," he added

impressively. "Did any o' yuh ever heer Nordickie?"

"I guess not," drawled Spike Gallager. "Who's he?"

'Tain't no he, and Gotch eyed Spike with withering contempt; "it's a female woman what I heerd in San Tone last fall. Cost me a hull plunk in the pee-roost, but everybody said. as how she were the best afloat, so I coughed up. Well, let me tell yuh, she was a warblin' gal from away back -but shucks! why, I hopes to drop plum dead this minit if Coyote's singing ain't soop-peer-reeor-far sooppeer-ree-or!-Gimme a light."

Gotch got his "light" from Spike's cigarette, and puffed vigorously for a considerable space. There are moments when silence is more weighty than speech. Presently he resumed:

"And I'll swallow a cob if Coyote ain't got the biggest heart of any gal yuh ever knowed."

"Yep!" chimed in Spike. "Fer once yuh told the truth, Gotch."

"I knowed it," averred Gotch. "Whimpering snakes! I knowed Coyote when I warn't no higher'n a goat. Why, five years ago, afore lots of yuh fellers had drifted this a-way, a baldface fool of a yearling got cut up purty bad. It was winter and ramp cold, too. The Captain wanted to git shed o' the critter and told me to shoot it. I was going for my gun when I heers Coyote a-calling me.

"Gotch,' she says, a-running after me, 'yuh ain't really gonna shoot thet yearlin', be yuh?'

"Why not?' says I. 'Them's the Captain's orders, and he-I means the yearlin' ain't wurth a dead skunk.'

"He be wuth more'n a dead skunk,' she says. Now, Gotch, yuh and Pinto. hitch up the mules and go git thet yearlin' and put him in the lil' corral here, 'cause I be a-gonna cure thet poor lil' cuss.'

"Wall, fellers, I allurs does what Coyote wants me to. And despite the fact thet thet yearlin's neck was cut nigh plum into, I'm a grinnin' tom-cat if Coyote didn't cure the critter in two months-yes sir-ree!"

Again the dead quiet was a compliment to Gotch. But for once he failed to appreciate his triumph. He fumbled for his cigarette papers.

"Them was great days," he muttered reminiscently. "Coyote was a regular lil' devil them days. She be a-gittin' tamer now, and purtier."

"Coyote be a ramp purty gal,” observed Spike, sententiously.

"Thet black hair o' her'n be ramp long and glossy," ventured Domino, who was by nature painfully reserved. "And them big blue eyes!" chimed in Beany; "they shore be makin' a feller uncomf'table."

"Coyote ees flirt-no good!" came from Pinto, a tall, handsome Mexican, who was ever at enmity with public opinion in general and Gotch in particular.

Beany caught his breath. Spike's dark eyes flashed menacingly. Two or three cowboys shifted their positions.

Pinto, conscious of what he had done, smiled contemptuously under cover of his wide hat-brim. The Mexican had gained some reputation with a "hair trigger" gun. He had it on now. Secretly, he had long loved Coyote. He hated Gotch for his "gift of gab," but mainly for the evident good-fellowship between the COWpuncher and Coyote. Pinto's advances had been spurned until, perceiving the hopelessness of his case, he had begun to itch for revenge upon them both. He believed Gotch to be a coward. But that the Mexican's hand was moving slowly toward his hip showed to what extent he realized his own limitations. The continued quiet emboldened him. He spoke again:

"Coyote she kees me long 'go-love me much. But now she ees

"Shut up!"

The order came from Gotch and his cocked pistol was leveled at Pinto.

II.

"If yuh move thet hand another inch I'll kill yuh. Up with 'em! High! Now, keep 'em thar!"

Gotch arose and walked slowly to

ward the Mexican, whom he still covered. His left hand drew Pinto's Colt from its holster, and turned the muzzle on its owner. When the cowboy spoke, as before, his voice was low, cool, but hard-hard as steel.

"Now mem'rize this, Pinto: The tonk don't live what can insult Coyote afore me, if I've got breath and strength enough to kill him. Better praise yer saints I didn't let daylight through yer greasy hide; but if I ever catch yuh on the Crescent O agin', I'll kill yuh deader'n hell, so help me Jacob! Now hit the trail."

Back of the foreman's house, in the corral, Coyote pushed a box of cornchops toward Imp.

"Thar, now, yuh lil' rascal, and don't yuh turn hit over just 'cause I ain't got no mirral 'cep'in' this 'un and it's full of patallos fer daddy."

And giving the mustang a final loving pat, she turned to her luggage: a baby carbine, a mirral half full of patallos (wild strawberries) and a jackrabbit she had shot that afternoon. Coyote shouldered the gun and the patallos, picked up the rabbit, and made for the house. She was small, slim and straight as an Indian. Her hair, black and straight, hung loose, blowing in the wind. She walked with the elastic, swinging stride of the experienced bushwhacker. Her high crowned, broad brimmed Stetson hat made her small, oval face seem even babyish, and in fact had the effect of making her appear ludicrous in the eyes of a stranger.

At the kitchen door, Coyote dropped everything to spring into the arms of Dennis McAll. After she had given him the French kiss he had taught her almost before she could talk, he asked, "Who loves her daddy?"

The girl strained back in her father's embrace to look into his eyes. The light from the kitchen showed them tired, but smiling.

"Love yuh?" she whispered. "Why, I be a-lovin' yuh better'n-better'n the hull world!" She kissed him again and, wriggling from his arms, snatched