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cowboys. And, what was more important, he had the knack of making them feel at ease in his presence.

When he swung from his saddle in front of a group of punchers near the main corral, it was not in the stiff, clumsy manner of the novice, but with the easy, natural grace of the veteran ranchman. Tossing his bridlereins over the mustang's head, he left them dragging on the ground.

Spike Gallager came forward with a broad grin.

"Durned if hit ain't the boss!" he ejaculated.

Carlton smiled and grasped the foreman's outstretched hand.

"Why, didn't you know me?" he asked.

"We shore didn't," replied Spike. "Go on and git to work, yuh idiots!" And with a wave of his hand, he dispersed the gaping crowd. "Yuh rides like a puncher, Mister Carlton; but with them new trappin's on, we couldn't make out just who yuh was." Carlton laughed.

"Guess I am something of a show," he admitted. "Well, you see it's this way, Spike: Mother and sister are selling their shares to The Northern Land Syndicate Company. They are going to make Boston their headquarters. But I'm not stuck on city life. I want nothing better than to live out here and run my ranch. thought I might as well have an outfit like you fellows-look the part, you know so I bought these things in Laredo the other day."

I

"Them's shore the fixin's, all right." And Spike circled about "the boss," eyeing him admiringly.

"Well, if they don't stampede the cattle, I guess they'll do," said the young rancher.

Whereupon both laughed goodhumoredly; then Spike led the way to the main gate. Spike Gallager was a goon enough sort of fellow. In fact, his constant care and love for an aged mother was common talk along that part of the border. He had a good heart; but a keen desire to make money; to "forge ahead," sometimes

caused him to disregard the dictates of his conscience.

"Now if yuh'll come around heah, Mister Carlton," said the foreman, "I'll have them cattle shifted and we'll count 'em."

"Good. Did you get extra men?” "Yes sir-twenty-eight, from the Bar L and Cross S outfits."

"How many does that make in all ?” "Fifty-three."

The two men walked in silence through the main corral and entered another, where, amid choking, blinding clouds of dust, a score of punchers were at work chasing, throwing and branding yearlings. Carlton paused to watch Beany slap a red-hot Crescent O branding-iron to the left side of a little bawling Holstein.

"I've allers wondered, Mister Carlton," said Spike thoughtfully, "how in thunder yer dad ever stumbled onto thet combination. Hit's the best brand in the state o' Texas. Thar's no fakin' hit-no sir-ree!"

An hour later, Carlton and his foreman climbed down from the high fence from which advantageous position they had reviewed and counted a continuous stream of fourteen jammed pens of live stock.

"Five corrals o' the finest steers I ever laid eyes on, Mister Carlton," said Spike.

"Hey, thar! Gallager!" Someone shouted from the main corral.

"What d'yuh want?" yelled the foreman.

"Sadie's heah-wants the bossquick! Somethin's wrong!"

Carlton ran to the gate, opened it and sped on through a series of corrals; Spike, close at his heels, closed the big portals after him. In the main corral they came upon Sadie surrounded by a crowd of excited cowpunchers. Tears were rolling down the old woman's cheeks, her trembling hands clenched and unclenched spasmodically. She shook a skinny fist at Carlton as he rushed up.

"Be yuh a man, John Carlton?" she shrieked.

"I-I hope so," panted the youth.

"What

"Then fer the love o' Christ take yer punchers and go after Coyote this minute. Thet low down ma o' yourn's gone and let Ben Sidney take her off. He driv up in his buckboard, and yer ma sent me down to the bunk-house to git me out o' the way. When I gits back Sidney was gone and Coyote warn't nowhar to be found. If he harms a hair o' thet baby's head, I hopes"

"My God!" Carlton's face had turned an ashy-pale. For an instant he stood speechless, horror-stricken; the next, his eyes flashed savagely.

"Fellows!" he shouted, "I'll give a hundred-dollar bill to every man that'll help me fight the Sidney outfit!"

There was a general, prolonged

chorus of assent.

"I don't want no money!" yelled Beany.

"Me nuther!" chimed in a dozen or more Crescent O boys, among them, the foreman. Spike had always held. a soft place in his heart for Dennis McAll's "lil' gal."

"Men," cried Carlton, "get on your horses! There'll be blood on the moon to-night!"

As they sprang to their mounts the cowboys whooped and yelled, while some one with a musical turn sang out lustily:

"Oh, hit's butcher-knives and revolvers,

Fer we're a fightin' band; We left them greasers' bones to bleach

On the banks o' the Rio Grande."

To be Continued.

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The End of the Trail

By H. P. Holt

O

N THE morning of the fourth day the burning sun had crept up into the eastern horizon, dyeing the water the colour of blood. The boat in which the two men lay did not move in the leaden sea. Not a breath of wind stirred the surface. The men had been shivering for hours in the chilly night air, but even that was preferable to the coming heat which they knew was inevitable. Already the sun's rays were growing more powerful. Just for the moment they were positively pleasant after the long, cold night, but this was only the period between the two extremes. In a little while it would be no use trying to hide under the thwarts. The scorching heat would come straight down and there was nothing, positively nothing, under which they could creep for shelter. The paintwork was already blistered everywhere, and the planks above the water-line were becoming warped. Under such conditions as those there is only a thin, wavering line between a man and the great unknown.

There was a strange contrast between the two men. The younger one appeared to have suffered most. He was what he looked-a creature accustomed to comforts; and it is no comfort to die slowly, in a small open boat, for the lack of food and water. Food, as a matter of fact, did not enter largely into his thoughts; it was the burning gnawing for liquid that set his brain on fire. Every fibre in his gross body cried out aloud for water. His tongue was hard and swollen, his eyes were gradually sinking into his head, and all the strength had slowly been sapped from his limbs.

During the early hours of the morning, while it was cold, he had more than once lethargically raised his head above the gun'le and peered out across the vast Pacific waste, knowing, however, even as he looked, that they might drift about for months in those waters without the remotest chance of being picked up. As far as his enfeebled mind could grasp anything, this was Death, but not in a stage sufficiently advanced. Next to the eternal craving for water he longed most for oblivion. Surely his body could not hold out much longer. He reflected vaguely that for many years he had not taken the least care of it. Indulgence of any kind that came handy, and was pleasant, had been his only thought. He could have screamed now, if he had any voice left, at the idea of cooling, fizzy drinks that were lying unopened in his bungalow. His drinks, absolutely his own property, which none but he had a right to touch while he lived.

He moved a little to evade the glare that was already coming over the thwart. Why did this grim, silent man beside him not drop off into unconsciousness instead of sitting there like a sphinx, staring into space? Twice he could have ended the long drawn out wait for the finish by jumping overboard if this officious person had not held him back with his enormous strength. The younger man resented it bitterly. With no earthly hope of living long, anyone, he thought, had a right to die.

Sometimes his mind flickered off at a tangent and brought him vivid pictures of other days. They were not all good to look upon, and he shud

dered at times in spite of the heat.

The older man was of a very different type. Privation, too, had bitter. into his vitality, but he was hard. His limbs and hands were hard, and each hour his eyes and mouth seemed to turn a shade harder. But for the ordeal of the last few days nobody would have guessed he was mid-way between fifty and sixty. True, his hair was for the most part gray, but there was no vice in that cold, resolute face. He was human-intensely human-but clean living for forty-five years had left its indelible stamp on him.

He rarely moved, excepting to glance at his companion now and again.

They had hardly spoken since the morning of the previous day. Words seem trivial to those who can see death staring them in the face. Since dawn the elder man had looked at his fellow sufferer with growing interest. Several times he was gong to say something, but checked it until the sun was at its fiercest. At last he clambered along the boat, and, sitting on one of the seats, looked down at the younger man.

"Feeling hot?" he asked.

"Lord! I'd sell my soul for a pint of water," was the reply.

"You can have it if you like, Riley," said the gray-haired man.

Riley opened his eyes and glared at his companion. Was he mad, or were they both mad? As a jest, a remark like that was ill-timed to the extent of being inhuman. Then Riley grinned in a painful fashion. He had just remembered he could have as much water as he liked-more than he liked. They were afloat in it.

"Yes, I know," he said in a low voice. "Don't sit there staring at me, Steel. I don't like it. Go away. If I've got to die, I won't do it with you staring at me."

But the elder man did not move. "I mean what I said," John Steel declared. "You can have water if you like. I don't guarantee that it isn't a bit warm. There aren't any iced luxuries on board at this minute, but you

can have good water if you like." Riley stared at him again. "Do you mean— " he began. "As sure as you are hanging with one foot over the edge of this life, I mean just what I say," Steel said.

"Then for God's sake, man, give it to me quickly. I'm dying. But you're mad, Steel. Go away. I'm too weak to move."

"I know you are," was the reply. "That is why I chose this moment. You are going to your Maker, Riley, and that's a bigger undertaking than you have ever tackled. There is no escape."

"Don't stare at me, Steel, there's a good fellow. Go and sit over in the stern again. Dying is rotten anyway, but you're making it harder."

A mirthless laugh escaped the elder man.

"It can be harder than this, Riley. Think of going out of existence for the want of water when there is enough and to spare. That makes you think, doesn't it, Riley?"

The younger man closed his eyes. Words seemed to be a waste of effort. Steel touched his ribs with the toe of his boot.

"I spoke to you, Riley. Didn't you hear?"

"If you aren't mad you must be a fiend incarnate," the younger man groaned.

"You happen to be wrong in both guesses," said Steel. "I should like to tell you a little story if you care to listen. Then you shall have the water perhaps."

Riley passed his dry tongue over his blistered lips, but he did not speak.

"More than twenty years ago," the elder man began, "a woman who was nearer a saint than most, bore a girl child, and died in bearing it, so that was all the father had left to remind him of his wife-just a little scrap of humanity that looked as though it would go, too, if somebody wasn't careful. But it lived. The father saw to that. He would probably have gone. mad if the nipper had joined its mother. You see, he'd loved the wo

man as men don't often love women, and so long as the nipper remained he had a bit of his wife. You follow me, so far, of course, Riley?"

The younger man opened his eyes and closed them. He was wishing that Steel's madness would make him jump over the side, out of the way; but he could not help listening.

"Well, the child grew up, the same as any child has a right to do, and every day it grew more like the woman who had died. It had the same eyes, the same profile, the same little mannerisms that wrung the man's heart even as they bridged the gulf. Perhaps that part won't interest you much, Riley, but I'm telling you so that you can get a proper grip on the whole thing. As the years went on, they did not do much to soften the great blow the man had been dealt, because, although you may not know it, Riley, there are some people who go on loving just as fiercely after death has robbed them. Only I want you to understand how much the man must have loved the girl for her mother's sake, quite apart from anything else. You've been in love yourself, so you ought to have some idea. I remember you told me about some of your amours while I was staying on your beautiful island estate, to which we should so much like to return. Not that they interested me, particularly, Riley, but I listened. You see, I was your guest and I had to be polite.

"This man-the one in the tale I am telling you-watched over the girl as she grew up, and did all God let him do to make her worthy of her mother. He sometimes used to wonder what sort of a man would get her. He wasn't too selfish to let her get married -though it used to make him feel sick when he thought of the parting. You see, he had been happy himself, and though there mayn't be any marrying or giving in marriage in Heaven, he knew it was the natural thing for human beings to do on this earth. fact, he had but one real ambition in life, and that was to make his little girl happy. It was only natural that

In

he thought, sometimes, there were not a lot of men fit to mate with her, but then he was a bit prejudiced. You'll agree with me, Riley, eh?"

Again the younger man looked up for an instant. Something impelled him to indicate to Steel that he was listening.

"Of course, you and I, who have knocked about the world, know that men are not all saints," Steel went on. "A good, pure girl takes a heap of chances when she selects a life-long companion, and if her father isn't a pretty bad sort he's liable to worry about it beforehand at times. It so happened that a decent sort of chap met this girl I'm telling you about. He was straight as a razor blade, with a clean record. He hadn't any money worth speaking of, but the girl's father wasn't concerned with that point. The lad was the sort who'd win through, and he was on the high road to winning too. The old man could see Fate rolling for him the very pill he had always dreaded, but he made up his mind not to show any signs of his own feelings lest it should mar her happiness. He liked the fellow, and could tell what was coming before the young couple had sized up the situation properly. The man had given the father a pretty broad hint what his intentions were, and I don't doubt they would soon have been married but for something that happened just then. Why, you can't have fallen asleep, Riley?"

Steel touched his companion's ribs again with his toe, until Riley opened his eyes, but a new light had come into them. The elder man noticed it, but his face was impassive.

"Well, I was saying," Steel continued, "something happened. A man arrived on the scene. I won't call him a snake in the grass. I don't want to insult snakes. He was a limb of Hell, straight from the infernal cesspools, but he was clever. Oh, yes, he was clever, and he knew he would never as much as kiss that girl's pretty face if he didn't hide his true character. He was a good looking creature, too, in a way. The things he did had not had

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