but to this young lady."

"You mean?" said Marie, mystified. "I mean," replied the doctor, "that, while I give Stanley full credit for his presence of mind, and for his nerve in sticking to his engine and for his skill in practically stopping his train, you are the one who averted the disaster." "But doctor, I don't understand." "Mental telepathy. Scientific men today, in many instances, admit the possibility that the mind of one person, when it is in a state of intense agitation, may create a vivid impression in the mind of another person, many miles away, if that other mind happens to be in a vacant or receptive condition and the two persons are in close sympathy. Soldiers, at the moment of danger or of death, seem to be able, in many cases, to appear in visionary form before near friends or dear relatives at home. It is a sort of wireless telegraphy between mind and mind."

"And you think," said Marie, "that I

did that?"

"You were in the greatest distress as you sat in the window, following Stanley's train, in your imagination, to its destruction. And he says that he was not thinking of anything in particular-his mind was in a receptive state at the very time when your thoughts were centered upon his peril. The conditions appear to have been wholly favorable for telepathic communication-just as a perfect electric circuit makes possible the sending of a telegram. I leave it for you and Stanley to decide whether or not a mental message was transmitted."

Dr. Harrell took his hat and medicine case and rose to go. But at the door he paused and looked thoughtfully at the couple seated close together on the sofa.

"I might add," he said, with a twinkle in his eye, "that you people seem to answer exactly to the description of persons in close sympathy-near, very near, friends. Yes, I diagnose this as a case of mental telepathy."

NUT brown sea of dusty, dry

A rushes lay motionless under a

shimmering noon-day sun. Out in the heart of it a vein of pale smoke curled heavenward, spiraling the hazy atmosphere of the warm autumnal morning and finally floating away to lose itself in higher zephyrs. Suddenly without herald, an arrogant north wind whipped down through the basin. Immediately, as though birthed by a savage combustion, dense banks of thunderous clouds -voluminous and irascible, writhed and fought and tossed and tumbled like a maddened tide of inky billows twisting toward the sky.

A man and a maid, pattering along on an old, hard beaten path, did not see the threatening coils of the smoky consternation. Possibly it was because they were traveling southward, but far more likely because they were eloping sweethearts and had eyes for little else save one another.

"Te amo, si, te amo de veras-tra lala

-," sang the lover. Then laughingly switching to the first two lines of the second stanza, he sang in English the words:

"No longer now silence that oppresses, No longer silence that destroys, tra la la-,"

"I don' understan' all dose wor's en that song," his sweetheart poutingly complained.

"I seng et for you all en thee Engleesh, den," responded her accommodating cavelier.

"I love you, yes, I love you truly—" he began when the Indian girl reached over and tickled the end of his nose with a long downy cat-tail; then jubilantly she exclaimed:

"I know one, too. Yes, I know a Span

ish song that es good for today. Lissen!" and she swayingly began to sing, translating as her lover had done to English,

"Vamos, arriba, muchachos-
Up an' away, my jooly boys all;
Fasten your boots ver' tight to your
feet;

Up an' away to gay Monterey,
Sweetest an' choicest of acorns to
eat."

Her lover laughed, "That es goodthat song. That es where we ar' goin' an' what we ar' goin' for, but you, you leetle glorondria-my leetle swallow, I am 'fraid your feet weel git ver' tired for we get to ole Monterey."

"Oooh, I bet no! What you wan' to bet me?" his lady challenged.

"Bravo! You ween!" shouted her admirer, "I weel not bet with such a fair lady. You ween, cara paloma!"

"No, no, no," the girl shook her head laughingly, "Today et es Carlos that weens everything, for today he weens me! Joe Raven he tink you ween, for today you tak' me away from heem for ever!"

Carlos frowned. Even as victor decamping with the spoils, he could not bear the mere mention of his hated rival's name to enter Paradise.

A

At Mrs. Bissett's ranchero this Joe Raven had suddenly risen to be a commanding figure among the work-a-day people on the wide-spreading ranch. few weeks ago, a month perhaps, and little or naught was known of him-save that he belonged to the tribe of the Tehamas to the northward and had wandered in, and aimlessly enough at that, to Mrs. Bissett's and applied for work. Today he was on par with the foreman, in fact, he took no orders from anyone,

save Mrs. Bissett, or Master Philip, themselves.

None could ride a horse as Joe Raven. None could quiet and curb the untrained colts as he. In the branding of cattle, the Tehaman showed a skill and dexterity that astonished the oldest of branders. He could cock more windrows of wheat in a day than three ordinary men in the same given time. His toiling with the harvesters was inexorable. Unsufferable heat, blizzards of flying chaff, and clouds of strangling red dust failed to deter him a minute in his labors on the thrasher.

He was possessed with the swiftness of the deer, the cunning of the fox, the endurance of the bear, the trickiness of the bob-cat and the ferocity of the wolf -so the Indians said-and they, one and all, disliked him. Philip Bisset said it was because they, themselves, were lazy, and Joe Raven as an Indian was exceptional. But old Charlie Mountain-Trout shook his gray-black head and muttered an intelligible something about Joe Raven to which all the other Indians stolidly nodded their heads in a silent but well-approved agreement.

One day Joe Raven discovered Nakoma in the kitchen. That for him was the beginning of a new day. On the spot he wanted the maid, and when Joe Raven wanted, his desires were insatiable, implacable, until gained and satisfied. So he wooed accordingly. But the Washoe maiden's affections were shuttling. Some days she favored the bold buck from Tehama, but more often she smiled upon gentle Carlos, the Mexican half-bred, part Mayo from a far away Sinaloa, but veined more with Spanish blood from yet more distant Spain.

Carlos was not a very good worker. In Mexico, the land of his birth, the day of hard work was always "manana." But Carlos, be he indolent, was always kind and sweet-tempered and ever in high fa

for the first green grasses and flowers of the early spring. Yes, Carlos in his way, was a great favorite, even with the Bissetts.

As the days passed Joe Raven became bolder in his love making. His attacks of courting became inflexible, commanding, unrelenting. At the same time the soft calling of Carlos' sweet love plaits were making themselves irresistible to the Indian girl's heart.

At last she could deny her choice no longer, and on this same delectable morning, had consented to run away with Carlos and escape from the grip of the persistent Tehaman.

Now out on the trail, Nakoma threw a handful of tule down at her lover and inquired archly:

"You don' lak to talk 'bout Joe Raven, Carlos?"

Carlos was on the verge of making an acidulous retort in reference to one Joe Raven, when a darkening mist like a blue-black fog shadowed the sun. The man looked up, then turned and looked back.

As out from a mammoth funnel, black swirling clouds wreathed through the air with vivid, frightened contortions. At first it flared as from a central nucleus, but seemingly on the instant, became volant took wings and blew from hither to thither, from this place to that with such surprising rapidity, that even before Carlos could exclaim, the whole sky was obscured and the plains enveloped in duskiness.

"Madre de Dios!" he cried in bewilderment, "the tule grass! The tule grass es on fire, my angel!"

Nakoma stood dumbfounded, but Indian-like she remained immovable.

"We mus' hurry an' git out of thee grass-ef we don'-why we git burned up, eh?" she said calmly.

Carlos coughed. The smoke was already becoming stifling.

"Come," he said, "come quickly. We mus' make to thee river."

"Thee Sacramento, Carlos?"

"No, Los Plumas. See thee wend, my darlin'. We may 'ope to beat the fire, but we can' beat the wend."

"Le's run," she cried, "et weel catch us on thes trail, sure. Oh, see Carlos, dere es a new plac' blazin' over dereand over dere-and dere and dere!" "We must take a cattle path. Here thes one Nakoma! Now run!"

"But we can' see where et es leadin' us-in thes tall tule. We can' see where we ar' goin' en here!"

"Mak thee haste, Nakoma-thee fire! -you see-et comes! an' thee smoke! Dios! soon we can not breathe!"

"We mus' not burn," declared the girl, "we mus' not burn, for that would please Joe Raven. How he would laugh ef he knew we were out here weth thee grass on fire!"

"Ef et was not for thee Raven we would not be here. I would hav' waited till I could buy a horse for you to ride. But I know by that tim' he would keel me or I would 'ave to keel heem, so I thenk best to go today, but I was wrong, mia beloved, to git you out here en thes fire. But how was poor Carlos to know that thee tules would burn today?" "We weel git out, Carlos. Hey! thes way-thes way! Oh, that smoke-I choke, Carlos- -I choke

"Come on, Nakoma! 'ow I wesh you were back at thee ranchero! but et es too late to thenk about that now. Hurry! you mus' run faster, Nakoma, you mus' run faster!"

"Mis' Bissett weel be angry-good Mis' Bissett!" gasped Nakoma. "I run away an' lef her wethout no help en hee

ketchen."

thee

"Vamos! Vamos! my loveflames! thee smoke, et es gainin'! et es gainin'! Thes path, my golondrina, see, see, here where thee cows hav' run!"

"No, no, my Carlos, thes way-thes way!" his sweetheart pleaded, "that trail goes back to thee north and but leads us back to thee flames!"

"I can' see-thee tules ar' so high!" the man panted, "ef only I had left you back en Mis' Bissett's ketchen!" "But-Joe Raven, Carlos?"

"Joe Raven could not harm you en jest one more day, Nakoma."

Nakoma shrugged her fat shoulders dubiously. Perhaps he could, and perhaps he couldn't, but Nakoma had no faith in this parvenu-Joe Raven.

On a little farther and the gri complained:

"Oh, my Carlos, thes trail es SO crooked, I'm sure I don' know where we are runnin'!"

"We weel turn back, mia paloma, for et es easy to see we ar' runnin ento thee fire--thee wend now beats en our faces an' et grows hotter every minute."

They turned to stumble back over the steps they had just trodden. Black seas of smoke curled down over the pair in dark tantrums of blinding fury. Cinders scorched them and stung them and flying whisps of blazing grass set their clothes afire.

On the next instant the smoke lifted and the blaze roared before them. In a flash Nakoma's face was blistered, her eyes seared, her long hair singed and crinkled.

Carlos staggered along in a paroxysm of coughing, the acrid vapors punished his throat and teased his lungs.

"Back Nakoma, back! We hav' agin come wrong!"

"Thes trail-no, thes one! Thes one! That es thee one we hav' jest come over, my Carlos!"

On for a moment, then a wail from the

woman.

"We ar' lost, my lover, we ar' lost!" "No, Nakoma, no, le's try thes trail. Ah, Dios!"

"Your shirt es on fire, Carlos!"