Of course, as soon as the story of Lord Fauntleroy and the difficulties
of the Earl of Dorincourt were discussed in the English newspapers, they
were discussed in the American newspapers. The story was too
interesting to be passed over lightly, and it was talked of a great
deal. There were so many versions of it that it would have been an
edifying thing to buy all the papers and compare them. Mr. Hobbs read so
much about it that he became quite bewildered. One paper described his
young friend Cedric as an infant in arms,--another as a young man at
Oxford, winning all the honors, and distinguishing himself by writing
Greek poems; one said he was engaged to a young lady of great beauty,
who was the daughter of a duke; another said he had just been married;
the only thing, in fact, which was _not_ said was that he was a little
boy between seven and eight, with handsome legs and curly hair. One said
he was no relation to the Earl of Dorincourt at all, but was a small
impostor who had sold newspapers and slept in the streets of New York
before his mother imposed upon the family lawyer, who came to America to
look for the Earl's heir. Then came the descriptions of the new Lord
Fauntleroy and his mother. Sometimes she was a gypsy, sometimes an
actress, sometimes a beautiful Spaniard; but it was always agreed that
the Earl of Dorincourt was her deadly enemy, and would not acknowledge
her son as his heir if he could help it, and as there seemed to be some
slight flaw in the papers she had produced, it was expected that there
would be a long trial, which would be far more interesting than anything
ever carried into court before. Mr. Hobbs used to read the papers until
his head was in a whirl, and in the evening he and Dick would talk it
all over. They found out what an important personage an Earl of
Dorincourt was, and what a magnificent income he possessed, and how many
estates he owned, and how stately and beautiful was the Castle in which
he lived; and the more they learned, the more excited they became.
"Seems like somethin' orter be done," said Mr. Hobbs. "Things like them
orter be held on to--earls or no earls."
But there really was nothing they could do but each write a letter to
Cedric, containing assurances of their friendship and sympathy. They
wrote those letters as soon as they could after receiving the news; and
after having written them, they handed them over to each other to be
read.
This is what Mr. Hobbs read in Dick's letter:
"DERE FREND: i got ure letter an Mr. Hobbs got his an we are
sory u are down on ure luck an we say hold on as longs u kin an
dont let no one git ahed of u. There is a lot of ole theves wil
make al they kin of u ef u dont kepe ure i skined. But this is
mosly to say that ive not forgot wot u did fur me an if there
aint no better way cum over here an go in pardners with me.
Biznes is fine an ile see no harm cums to u Enny big feler that
trise to cum it over u wil hafter setle it fust with Perfessor
Dick Tipton. So no more at present
"DICK."
And this was what Dick read in Mr. Hobbs's letter:
"DEAR SIR: Yrs received and wd say things looks bad. I believe
its a put up job and them thats done it ought to be looked
after sharp. And what I write to say is two things. Im going to
look this thing up Keep quiet and Ill see a lawyer and do all I
can And if the worst happens and them earls is too many for us
theres a partnership in the grocery business ready for you when
yure old enough and a home and a friend in
"Yrs truly, SILAS HOBBS."
"Well," said Mr. Hobbs, "he's pervided for between us, if he aint a
earl."
"So he is," said Dick. "I'd ha' stood by him. Blest if I didn't like
that little feller fust-rate."
The very next morning, one of Dick's customers was rather surprised. He
was a young lawyer just beginning practice. As poor as a very young
lawyer can possibly be, but a bright, energetic young fellow, with sharp
wit and a good temper. He had a shabby office near Dick's stand, and
every morning Dick blacked his boots for him, and quite often they were
not exactly water-tight, but he always had a friendly word or a joke for
Dick.
That particular morning, when he put his foot on the rest, he had an
illustrated paper in his hand--an enterprising paper, with pictures in
it of conspicuous people and things. He had just finished looking it
over, and when the last boot was polished, he handed it over to the boy.
"Here's a paper for you, Dick," he said; "you can look it over when you
drop in at Delmonico's for your breakfast. Picture of an English castle
in it, and an English earl's daughter-in-law. Fine young woman,
too--lots of hair--though she seems to be raising rather a row. You
ought to become familiar with the nobility and gentry, Dick. Begin on
the Right Honorable the Earl of Dorincourt and Lady Fauntleroy. Hello! I
say, what's the matter?"
The pictures he spoke of were on the front page, and Dick was staring at
one of them with his eyes and mouth open, and his sharp face almost pale
with excitement.
"What's to pay, Dick?" said the young man. "What has paralyzed you?"
Dick really did look as if something tremendous had happened. He pointed
to the picture, under which was written:
"Mother of Claimant (Lady Fauntleroy)."
It was the picture of a handsome woman, with large eyes and heavy braids
of black hair wound around her head.
"Her!" said Dick. "My, I know her better'n I know you!"
The young man began to laugh.
"Where did you meet her, Dick?" he said. "At Newport? Or when you ran
over to Paris the last time?"
Dick actually forgot to grin. He began to gather his brushes and things
together, as if he had something to do which would put an end to his
business for the present.
"Never mind," he said. "I know her! An I've struck work for this
mornin'."
And in less than five minutes from that time he was tearing through the
streets on his way to Mr. Hobbs and the corner store. Mr. Hobbs could
scarcely believe the evidence of his senses when he looked across the
counter and saw Dick rush in with the paper in his hand. The boy was out
of breath with running; so much out of breath, in fact, that he could
scarcely speak as he threw the paper down on the counter.
"Hello!" exclaimed Mr. Hobbs. "Hello! What you got there?"
"Look at it!" panted Dick. "Look at that woman in the picture! That's
what you look at! _She_ aint no 'ristocrat, _she_ aint!" with withering
scorn. "She's no lord's wife. You may eat me, if it aint Minna--_Minna!_
I'd know her anywheres, an' so'd Ben. Jest ax him."
Mr. Hobbs dropped into his seat.
"I knowed it was a put-up job," he said. "I knowed it; and they done it
on account o' him bein' a 'Merican!"
"Done it!" cried Dick, with disgust. "_She_ done it, that's who done it.
She was allers up to her tricks; an' I'll tell yer wot come to me, the
minnit I saw her pictur. There was one o' them papers we saw had a
letter in it that said somethin' 'bout her boy, an' it said he had a
scar on his chin. Put them two together--her 'n' that there scar! Why,
that there boy o' hers aint no more a lord than I am! It's _Ben's_
boy,--the little chap she hit when she let fly that plate at me."
Professor Dick Tipton had always been a sharp boy, and earning his
living in the streets of a big city had made him still sharper. He had
learned to keep his eyes open and his wits about him, and it must be
confessed he enjoyed immensely the excitement and impatience of that
moment. If little Lord Fauntleroy could only have looked into the store
that morning, he would certainly have been interested, even if all the
discussion and plans had been intended to decide the fate of some other
boy than himself.
Mr. Hobbs was almost overwhelmed by his sense of responsibility, and
Dick was all alive and full of energy. He began to write a letter to
Ben, and he cut out the picture and inclosed it to him, and Mr. Hobbs
wrote a letter to Cedric and one to the Earl. They were in the midst of
this letter-writing when a new idea came to Dick.
"Say," he said, "the feller that give me the paper, he's a lawyer. Let's
ax him what we'd better do. Lawyers knows it all." Mr. Hobbs was
immensely impressed by this suggestion and Dick's business capacity.
"That's so!" he replied. "This here calls for lawyers."
And leaving the store in the care of a substitute, he struggled into his
coat and marched down-town with Dick, and the two presented themselves
with their romantic story in Mr. Harrison's office, much to that young
man's astonishment.
If he had not been a very young lawyer, with a very enterprising mind
and a great deal of spare time on his hands, he might not have been so
readily interested in what they had to say, for it all certainly sounded
very wild and queer; but he chanced to want something to do very much,
and he chanced to know Dick, and Dick chanced to say his say in a very
sharp, telling sort of way.
"And," said Mr. Hobbs, "say what your time's worth a' hour and look into
this thing thorough, and _I'll_ pay the damage,--Silas Hobbs, corner of
Blank street, Vegetables and Fancy Groceries."
"Well," said Mr. Harrison, "it will be a big thing if it turns out all
right, and it will be almost as big a thing for me as for Lord
Fauntleroy; and at any rate, no harm can be done by investigating. It
appears there has been some dubiousness about the child. The woman
contradicted herself in some of her statements about his age, and
aroused suspicion. The first persons to be written to are Dick's brother
and the Earl of Dorincourt's family lawyer."
And actually, before the sun went down, two letters had been written and
sent in two different directions--one speeding out of New York harbor on
a mail steamer on its way to England, and the other on a train carrying
letters and passengers bound for California. And the first was addressed
to T. Havisham, Esq., and the second to Benjamin Tipton.
And after the store was closed that evening, Mr. Hobbs and Dick sat in
the back-room and talked together until midnight.
(_To be concluded._)
[Illustration]
INVERTED.
BY JOHN B. TABB.
"Bicycles!--Bicycles!"
Nay; to shun laughter,
_Try_ cycles first,
And _buy_ cycles after;
For surely the buyer
Deserves but the worst,
Who would buy cycles, failing
To try cycles first!
A LAKE GEORGE CAPSIZE.
BY EDWARD EGGLESTON.
[Illustration: A QUIET ROW ON THE "BROAD LAKE."]
Lake George can be the calmest and loveliest sheet of water that ever
was shut in by mountain walls, but like all mountain lakes it is very
fickle. If you have never seen it "cut up its didos," you do not yet
really know our Lake. In the fall, when the tourists have gone and the
hotels and cottages are quiet, Lake George now and then gets into a
great rage and becomes quite sublime.
One day in the latter part of October, there came into our bay a trim
little sloop-rigged sailboat, with three men aboard. They were after the
ducks that always make Dunham's Bay a resting-place on their long autumn
journey to the southward. This little yacht, if I may call it one, had
not been long in view when there broke upon the lake a fierce, cold,
north wind, driving the whitecaps up into the bay like a frightened
flock of sheep.
The sailboat could now stand only the mainsail, and even with that it
reeled and tumbled about fearfully in the hands of its unskilled crew,
and two or three times it was nearly driven ashore, for the men seemed
quite unable to make it beat up into the wind.
[Illustration: "CHARLIE BROUGHT THE BOW OF THE BOAT TO THE MAN IN THE
WATER AND TOOK HIM ABOARD." (SEE NEXT PAGE.)]
While the gale was thus running into the bay, my young friend Charlie
Fraser, with a boy's love for excitement, came and asked permission to
go out in my rowboat, to see "what kind of a rough-water boat she might
be." Though I knew him to be both a good oarsman and a good swimmer, and
though the boat had always behaved admirably in a sea, I hesitated,
until he proposed not to venture beyond Joshua's Rock, which marks the
line between the bay and the "broad lake," as the people call it at this
point. After I had let him go, I reproached myself for trusting a boy of
sixteen in a gale that was momently increasing in violence. But Charlie
did not care to risk too near an approach to the broad lake; he soon saw
that there was danger of swamping even in the bay, and therefore he put
about for home. In passing the sailboat, which was laboring hard among
the rushing, roaring whitecaps, he had shouted to the young men to take
in a reef; but they kept the whole mainsail flying, though they had to
place all the ballast up to windward and then to sit in a row upon the
windward gunwale of the boat to keep it from upsetting. Finding that the
gale, which continued to rise, would certainly upset them in spite of
all their exertions, one of them eased off the sheet, while the man at
the tiller at the same moment brought the boat's head into the wind.
This left all the weight of the ballast and the men on one side, with no
balancing force of wind in the sail, and the light sloop tipped
completely over in the direction opposite to the one they had feared.
The sail lay flat upon the water, with one poor fellow under it, while
another, encumbered with a big overcoat, was floundering in the waves;
the third succeeded in climbing to the upper side of the capsized sloop
and sitting astride of it. The wild, frightened cries of the young men
rose above the hissing of wind and the roaring of waves, and Charlie
brought his boat around and rowed for them. The waves jerked one of his
oars from the rowlock, but he soon had it in its place, and was pulling
as a strong boy can pull when cries of drowning men are in his ears.
"Help! quick! I'm going! Oh, help! help!" rang in his ears and spurred
him to do his utmost, as he headed straight for the sailboat,
disregarding the waves that broke now and then into his own boat.
When Charlie got up to the wreck, he presented the bow of his boat first
to the man who had emerged from under the sail. This young man took
hold, then lost his grip and went down as the water tossed the boat; and
Charlie held on to the seat to keep from being pitched after him. Then
the man came up, gurgling, sputtering, and getting a new hold on the
boat succeeded in scrambling in. Holding the boat into the teeth of the
wind, Charlie then brought the bow to the other man in the water, and so
took him aboard. There were now three people and a great deal of water
in the boat; and Charlie concluded that it had all it would carry, and
that it would be necessary to land his two passengers before taking the
stout young man who maintained an uneasy perch on the capsized yacht.
Shouting some words of encouragement to him, Charlie started for the
shore; but the young man on the boat, benumbed by his ducking and the
icy wind, and perhaps discouraged at seeing the rowboat leave him, fell
off the capsized yacht into the water with a cry for help. Charlie put
back just in time to grab him as he again let go his hold, and began to
sink. But the rowboat had all it would bear in such a sea, and before
taking him aboard, it was necessary to make the others throw overboard
their wet coats and overcoats. Then the stout young man was pulled in
over the stern, and Charlie soon brought the rowboat, staggering under
its load of four persons and a great weight of water, safely to dock. A
little while after, the three dripping duck-hunters were drying by the
kitchen fire.
"I was under the sail," said one of them to me, "and if the boat hadn't
come to our help just when it did, it would have been the end of me."
A New York gentleman who heard of this affair wrote to the office of the
United States Life Saving Service, at Washington, asking for the silver
medal of the Government for Charlie Fraser. Of course there was a great
deal of formality to be gone through with; affidavits were made by
eye-witnesses, and filed away at Washington, and there the matter rested
for months. Meantime Charlie had no recognition of his act except a
letter from the mother of one of the young men, though he had, I
suppose, what was better--the consciousness of having done his duty
manfully in a pinch. One administration at Washington went out, and
another came in, and we concluded that the medal had been forgotten. But
one day there came to Charlie a very large official envelope, in the
corner of which there was boldly printed "Treasury Department." It was
also marked "Official Business," and was addressed in big letters and
looked very impressive. The inside of it seemed equally important, and
it read:
"MR. CHARLES M. FRASER:
"SIR: I have the pleasure to transmit herewith a silver
life-saving medal which has been awarded you under authority of
section 7 of the Act of June 20, 1874, section 12 of the Act of
June 18, 1878, and section 9 of the Act of May 4, 1882, in
recognition of your courage and humanity in saving three
persons from drowning October 25, 1884.
"I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
D. MANNING,
"_Secretary._"
And the same day there reached him by express the silver medal in a neat
case.
[Illustration: OBVERSE. REVERSE.]
A ROCKY MOUNTAIN HERMIT.
(_Concluded._)
BY ALFRED TERRY BACON.
One evening my quiet hermitage seemed more silent than ever before. That
small dog, Gip, slept soundly on the earthen floor, tired out with a
long day's run through the park. I had just chased away a friendly
striped snake that had squirmed in through a mouse-hole and settled
itself comfortably, wishing to make its home with me. The field-mice
trooped silently about the room in dozens, over the table and under the
chairs,--but there is no defense against them. The other night they had
the impudence to sit on my pillow and pull out my hair for their nests.
"Their tameness is shocking to me," as Alexander Selkirk, the original
Robinson Crusoe, complained of the beasts on his island.
[Illustration: HEAD OF THE BISON, OR AMERICAN BUFFALO. [SEE NEXT PAGE.]]
Plotting against the mice, without lighting a lamp I sat by the doorway
as the darkness deepened, for the night was too warm and too fine for
lamp-light. The long midsummer twilight faded to a narrow band of gray
just over the mountain-peak; and looking out, I could hear none of the
familiar sounds of the wilderness--even the murmuring pine-woods were
hushed in the perfectly calm night. But presently a soft splashing sound
came from the pool in the brook behind the house. It reminded me that
for nearly a year I had been living within fifty steps of a colony of
beavers, and had not yet seen a single one of them; for they are never
out by daylight and I am never out by night.
The brook which runs through the park dwindles to a very small stream
after the summer heat has melted all the snow from the peak; and there
would be too little water for the beavers to swim in if they had not
built a number of solid dams across the stream, making as many pretty
ponds, where they and the muskrats and the wild ducks lead a jolly life
together. There is a chain of five of these beaver-ponds, which begins
quite near the house. Often in the early morning, we see places where
they have been at work all night, mending their dams, cutting down
willow bushes, and even felling trees of some size with a smooth cut
that a skillful woodman might be proud of; but all day long there is
never a sound of work in the silent village. So, hearing something
plunging into the pond in the late twilight, I stole to the bank and
looked through an opening in the willow thicket. There by the dim light
I saw their round, dark bodies swimming around and around and up and
down the pond as silently as fishes, with only a gentle splash now and
then as they dipped beneath the surface. It must have been a holiday
evening with them, for they were taking a rest from their hard work, and
it seemed in the darkness as if they were only playing together in the
water.
But I had only a little time to watch them, for some slight noise or the
scent of the enemy soon spread an alarm, and in a moment every beaver
had disappeared from the pond.
Some years ago, we used to read that all the beavers would soon be
killed; for beaver fur had long been fashionable, and the price of every
skin was very high. It is strange that the life and happiness of
millions of little animals in the backwoods of America and Siberia
should depend on the whims of the grand ladies of Paris and London; but
so it is. When the beaver fur went out of favor, and the slaughter of
the Alaska seals began, the beavers increased wonderfully in all the
Western creeks and rivers. But if the Princess of Wales should happen to
fancy a garment of beaver fur, woe to the unhappy little beavers of the
Rocky Mountains! Thousands of other grand ladies must follow the
fashion, and thousands of beavers must furnish the fur.
In riding over the green turf of the open country, one sees everywhere
white objects which so reflect the strong sunshine that they almost
dazzle the eye. These are the bleaching skulls of the buffaloes that
used to roam in thousands through this region. Every one has read how,
only fifty years ago, millions of buffaloes wandered over nearly half of
the United States; now there are no great herds except in the Territory
of Montana, and from that territory more than a hundred thousand skins
have been sent to the East in a year. For nearly every skin that is sent
away, about half a ton of fine meat is left to decay on the prairie. It
is a reckless waste of animal life, and I am sorry to say that our
government does very little to stop it. Within ten years there will be
no more great herds of buffaloes in the United States. Small bands of
them will linger hidden away in valleys, but by the time some boys who
read this have lived to be old men, the American bison will probably be
seen only where it is kept as a curiosity; just as the one little band
of aurochs--the last descendants of the wild cattle which used to roam
over all Europe--is kept by the Emperor of Russia. Still, even now, at
times, single buffaloes or small bands of them will wander back here to
their old grazing-grounds. Last summer a party of hay-makers saw a band
of a dozen or more in a remote valley behind the peak. And a few days
later, one of our neighbors at the nearest ranch, beyond the mountains,
was sitting in the doorway of his snug home one morning, after an early
breakfast, when to his astonishment, a great buffalo bull came trotting
easily along within a hundred yards of the door. He would hardly have
been more surprised had an elephant or a rhinoceros happened in for a
morning call; for he had never seen a buffalo, nor had he ever expected
to see one at his own ranch. But his surprise left him breath enough to
shout, "A buffalo! a buffalo!" The house was full of men just in from
the work of gathering beef-cattle for shipment; and at the startling
word, every man seized the nearest rifle or pistol or shot-gun, and
dashed away to join the chase; only one or two stopping hastily to throw
a saddle on a horse. As soon as the chase began, the big beast ran
swiftly into the thicket along the creek, and was able to keep out of
sight for some time. The chase was long and exciting, but the buffalo's
pursuers were too many for him. Some followed up his trail, while others
watched the outskirts of the thicket; and at last one of the best
marksmen among them, catching sight of the big black body, took a quick
line aim and brought the buffalo down with a single bullet; so all the
inhabitants of the ranch were feasted with buffalo-meat as long as it
could be kept from spoiling. But where the great herds range, there is
no such excitement about killing them.
One day a young fellow from the East was listening eagerly with me to
the yarns of an old buffalo-hunter, and as the hunter finished his
story, the young man said:
"It must be tremendously exciting sport, John!"
"Well, I'll tell you how it is," said John. "It's about as exciting as
if you were to go out into the corral and shoot a dozen of those old
dairy-cows with a pistol."
With a swift horse, trained to the business, and a heavy revolver, a man
who can aim truly may often ride into a herd of buffaloes, overtaking
them one by one when they are running their hardest, and, riding close
beside them, can put his bullets into the hearts of dozens of them in a
single day's hunt. That is the reason why the bison is the first of all
the wild animals to disappear at the approach of civilized man--it can
not possibly escape from a swift horseman.
[Illustration: "A COLONY OF BEAVERS."]
The most abundant game animals among the mountains are the deer. The
white-tailed deer is small and much like the antelope in color, but has
a far more sleek and handsome coat. The black-tailed or mule deer is
twice as large as its white-tailed cousin, and wears a quaker-colored
coat, which in summer is tinged with brown. Sometimes, on horseback, I
have met the deer in the mountains without giving them any alarm, and we
have stood and gazed at one another at our leisure, just to satisfy
curiosity. But they know that a man on foot or carrying a rifle is a
dangerous creature, and they never stop long to look at him. Usually,
even before the hunter catches sight of them, they have seen him. They
do not bound away through the forest with a jump and a crash; but, even
if taken by surprise, they vanish away between the yellow trunks of the
pines as silently as the shadow of the low swooping vulture slides
across the grass. They dart so noiselessly through the dark woods that
in the distance they seem more like a troop of flying spirits than a
herd of animals.
In those parts of the mountains which are so rocky and rough that few
animals can approach them, and on the high barrens where the snow lies
late in summer, the beautiful big-horn sheep live undisturbed. It is
only when they come down to the streams for water, that the hunter can
have a fair chance of shooting them. They are swift and handsome
animals. Their heads are crowned with ribbed and curving horns larger
than those the broad-horned Texas cattle carry. Their coats are not
woolly, but are covered with glossy brown hair, shading off in the lower
parts to a white as pure as the snow-drifts among which they live. There
are no animals, excepting the Swiss chamois and other wild goats, that
can run and jump among jagged rocks as they do; and it is useless for
any man or beast to try to chase them on the mountain-tops. But a few
weeks ago, before the boys went out to work with the cattle, two of them
were searching for horses in a canon opening westward from the valley,
and Gip was trotting along behind them, when a turn in the trail
suddenly showed them a flock of wild sheep climbing a steep path up the
rocky side of the canon. Both men took quick aim and fired, and the
flock went bounding on toward their home among the crags, with one fine
young buck lagging behind, his leg broken by a bullet. Yet no man may
hope to overtake a wild sheep among the rocks, even though the sheep has
but three legs to go on; so, after wounding their fine game, it seemed
as if they must lose him. But just as they were making up their minds to
the disappointment, Gip took in the trouble with one quick glance and
ran to their aid. He has never been taught to hunt, but he is a very
wise dog, and does very well without training. He went scrambling up
over the rocks ten times faster than a man could go, and soon headed off
the wounded sheep. Now Gip is small, and a wild sheep is very large, and
tall like a deer; and it seemed impossible that so little a dog could
stop it. But the sheep naturally lowered its head to bring its horns to
bear on the dog; and Gip, seeing its head within reach, gave a snap at
its nose and hung on for dear life, though he was almost lifted from the
ground. Even a mountain sheep can not be very nimble with a broken leg,
and a dog on the end of its nose; so the boys soon climbed up after him,
and when near enough not to endanger the plucky little dog, they ended
the sheep's life with another shot. And so, for many days, all the men
at the cabin lived on mutton finer even than the famous mutton that is
fattened on the English downs.
Not long ago, old Frank, the man who lives alone at the ranch on the
western side of the mountains, had the good fortune to come upon two
little wild lambs in open ground, where he could easily overtake them;
for they were only a few days old. Being a lone man and fond of pets, he
carried them home in his arms and fed them every day with milk, until
they became as tame as kittens. When they grew to be large sheep, their
perfect tameness made them famous curiosities even in the Far West; but
they were much greater curiosities when their owner took them to the
Eastern States,--for I doubt if a tame big-horn sheep had ever before
been seen in an American city. The great price which the rare animals
brought well paid the man for all his trouble.
[Illustration: HEAD OF A MULE DEER.]
Any of the grazing and browsing animals which live in the Far West may
easily be tamed if they are caught young. The antelope and deer are not
uncommon pets at the frontier ranches; the mountain sheep and elk can be
tamed as readily, but it is more difficult to catch them.
Nearly all the men on the ranches of Wyoming are engaged in the cattle
business; and they are so accustomed to throwing the lasso in catching
the free cattle and horses, that when they come on the young wild
animals, they have little trouble in roping them. The cow-boys, when
they are sociable about the roaring hearth-fires in winter, have many
curious stories to tell about capturing every kind of wild animal with
their ropes. Sometimes when a few of them are away together gathering
cattle, they will come on a bear, and, even if unarmed, it is easy for
the boys to throw one or two ropes around the bear and hold it until
some armed man comes to finish the work. The only trouble is in finding
a horse brave enough to run near a bear while his rider throws the rope.
One man, very skillful with the rope, has told me how he lassoed a
mountain lion. Those great cats are so greedy that when they find a
carcass, they will eat until they are stupid and slow in their
movements, like a boa constrictor when it is filled with food; so, when
this cow-boy found a large old lion just finishing its dinner, he had no
difficulty in throwing a noose over its head and dragging it after his
horse until another man came up to end its life.
[Illustration: HEAD OF ROCKY MOUNTAIN WILD SHEEP.]
Soon this queer, lonely way of living will come to an end for me. Often
every day shall I look down the valley, hoping to see the white canvas
top of the prairie-schooner heave in sight on the pass leading in from
the open country. When all the cow-boys have finished gathering cattle
and come home to the peak, the old cabin will be crowded and lively
enough. Then the rest of the summer will be filled with hard work in
getting together the fat beef-steers and driving them a long journey to
the Pacific Railroad, where they will be loaded on trains and carried
away to feed the beef-eaters of America and England.
The curlew is still whistling under the plum-bushes not far away, so
that the dog sometimes starts up to see who calls him; but now all the
fragrant plum-blossoms have fallen away and the small green fruit hangs
in clusters. Midsummer has gone; with it came the scorching southeast
wind which turns the grass to hay and kills the flowers like a November
frost. And, since they are dead, the wilderness is too lonely. While
they lived, they were society enough for a hermit; they smiled a sweet
good-morning at every sunrise, and filled the evening twilight with
fragrance which carried my thoughts away to an old New England home and
to happy days spent long ago in gathering forest flowers on the
Connecticut hills. There has been enough of hermit life for one year. It
has been pleasant; but the end of it will be pleasant, too.
[Illustration]
The Dangerous Dog
The dangerous dog in the drawing-room lay,
And snapped at the houseflies that came in his way.
"I'm a dangerous canine!" he said
"Beware how you trouble a creature of my--"
But his speech was cut short as he happened to spy
A bumble-bee close to his head!
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
[_An Historical Biography._]
BY HORACE E. SCUDDER.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON'S SWORD,--NOW IN THE LIBRARY OF THE STATE
DEPARTMENT AT WASHINGTON.]