A rifle Merrill

a heap of camping equipment. butt protruded from the pile. knew it was a race for the gun. He had two hundred yards to go-the other but fifty. He drew his own gun and leaned lower over Monty's neck. The black mane whipped into his face and he thrilled at the magnificent speed of his horse. The girl, half sitting and with wide, fear-clouded eyes, watched them flash by, a lean, hard-eyed man astride a huge, black horse streaked with foam and froth and tearing like a mad thing. The running man looked back, then spurted with all his strength to cover the last ten yards. He jerked the gun to him and whirled, bringing it to his shoulder with the same movement. Then Merrill began to shoot. He saw his quarry stagger at his first shot and the rifle slip from his hand, but he remained on his feet, swaying, while the squatter emptied his gun. The last shot was fired as close as twenty yards, and Merrill almost saw it go home. The dark, evil face before him suddenly sagged into a look of stupid wonderment. Too late Merrill tried to pull Monty aside, but the horse was not to be denied. He crashed into the slowly toppling form, hauling it to the ground and crushing it sickenly with his thudding hoofs. The trail of vengeance had ended.

CHAPTER III.

The Crooked L ranch was shrouded in an atmosphere of desolation. Everyone moved and spoke in an attitude of solemnity and hushed reverence lest they disturb the big, broken-hearted man who sat huddled upon the veranda. For hours he had remained in the same position,

leonine head sunk upon his chest -his big, work-hardened hands folded and listless. After hours of hoping against hope he accepted the apparent inevitable. His riders had combed the range from end to end and returned empty-handed, only to be sent forth again and again on their fruitless search by the frantic father. Now, after an absence of two days and nights, Big Tom Bartlett shrunk down into his chair and gave his daughter up for lost. The others about the ranch had given up long ago.

It was with a crushed, deadened spirit that Bartlett accepted a final realization of his loss. And the Crooked L mourned with the father.

Merrill stopped just below the crest of the ridge and turned in his saddle to face the girl.

"As you know, Miss Bartlett," he said soberly, "the ranch lies just over this ridge. I'll leave you to make the rest of the way alone."

He lifted his hat and wheeled Monty off the path, waiting for her to pass. But she did not move. Instead she looked at him rather queerly and spoke with great determination.

"I'm not going to that house, Mr. Merrill, unless you go with me. I can't understand why you should have such a silly idea of wishing to leave unseen after all you have done for me. My father will be the most grateful man in the world, and will never be able to thank you enough. And he won't rest until he has seen you personally and shaken hands with you."

Her directness confused Merrill.

"But I don't want any thanks. I only done what any other man would have done. And besides, Monty should get the credit, not me."

His excuse was very lame and he knew it. A flood of red crept over his tanned face.

"That does not make our debt of gratitude any the less to you. What any other man might have done is nothing. The fact remains that you did it and that is what matters to myself and my father. You must come with me." She leaned over and laid her hand on his sleeve. "Please, Mr. Merrill," there was a little catch in her voice. "Don't keep me from my daddy any longer."

Merrill saw the glint of tears in her frank gray eyes and mentally cursed himself savagely as a fool and a brute. He answered her by taking the trail and leading the way over the ridge to the house of desolation below.

The sound of hoofs penetrated dimly through the sorrow that blanketed the senses of Big Tom Bartlett. He lifted

a face that had grown old in a night. A lithe, auburn-haired figure stood before his unbelieving eyes. She was smiling through a flood of unshed tears "Daddy," she whispered, and crept into his sheltering outstretched arms.

Merrill observed the meeting from the step and felt that he was intruding, so he slipped quietly away to the bunkhouse, where he borrowed the makings from an open-mouthed Mexican and settled down on a rickety chair for a smoke. They found him there a little later.

For a moment Bartlett said nothing, but his big paw crushed Merrill's hand like a vise. Straight into each others eyes they looked - two strong men, searching the windows of the mind and soul for the hall-mark therein. And they saw and were satisfied.

"Anything I have is yours," said Bartlett simply. "I'll be proud to have you for a neighbor, my boy. You've picked the best spot on my range for a homebut it's yours, and more, too, if you want it."

Merrill shook his head smilingly..

And

"I have plenty, Mr. Bartlett. Enough to make my mammy well and happy. That little valley on the McCloud will make an ideal little home for us. now I reckon I'll be gettin' along. I left my pup to take care of the shanty while I was away. He must be pretty hungry by this time."

He whistled for Monty and swung into the saddle. Father and daughter stood side by side watching him. A great gratitude was in their faces. Swiftly the girl slipped up to the horse's head. She put her cheek against his velvety muzzle.

"Big, wonderful Monty, you brought your master to me before, will you bring him again?"

The horse whickered gently and rubbed his nose against her shoulder.

Her eyes were luminous as she lifted them bravely to Merrill's gaze.

"Monty is willing; are you?"

(The End)

A

FEW months ago, a man who was a very close friend to my grandfather in the early days in San Francisco, and who has been living for the past forty-one years in Guatemala, returned to San Francisco.

To me, he seemed to have walked straight out of our old family photograph album. He is very tall and very thin, bony in fact, and has a very large Adam's apple. His hair is pure white, and thick, with no intimation of a bald spot, and he wears a white mustache, and a white goatee. His small, deep-set, but very bright brown eyes, and his large nose with a hump on it, give him the appearance of an eagle. He was originally a Southerner, and forty-one years of speaking the Spanish language have given him a remarkable accent.

I happened to be the only member of my family in San Francisco at the time, and the duties of hospitality fell to me.

We started out at eight o'clock in the morning, "to see the old town," as he put it. He wanted first to go to Rincon Hill. He said Rincon Hill was the first district he had known when he came to San Francisco a young fellow, and that he is like an old jack-rabbit of the foothills; drive him out in the morning, but he is sure to to come back to his old haunts in the evening.

I do not know, myself, what Rincon Hill used to be, but now it certainly is not an inspiring neighborhood. It is the least reclaimed of any of the burned sections of the city. Portions of stone stairways lead to nothing. Remains of brick chimneys stick up in empty lots. Here and there a queer-shaped, black, leafless tree tells where once upon a time there was a garden. What few houses have been built are wooden flats of the cheapest kind.

"So this is Rincon Hill!" my friend kept repeating to himself; "so this is Rincon Hill!"

"Well, well!" he said, finally, turning to me; "the day of Rincon Hill was past before I left San Francisco, but who would have thought that it ever would come to this!"

From Rincon Hill, we walked along Brannan Street. My friend wanted to go to Saint Rose's Church. He told me that he was married in Saint Rose's Church, and two years later his wife was buried from it. When he asked me if the church had been rebuilt since the fire, I took a chance and said, yes. I was ashamed to admit that I did not know. At Third Street, I caught a glimpse of two brick spires, and breathed with relief.

"So they have a brick church now!" said my friend. "Yes, I recollect now, they were talking of building a brick church about the time I left."

The church has been rebuilt with the bricks which went through the fire, and to me it had a bruised and scarred appearance; but my friend did not seem to notice. We sat in the church for about half an hour. It seemed to me to be rather barren. The roof is very high. Only half the floor space is taken up with pews, the back portion being absolutely bare. A few of the windows are stained glass, but by far the greater number are plain glass.

On leaving the church, my friend stopped in the vestibule and read the list of parish pew-holders. The list is comprised of two names. Then he read the church's honor-roll of enlisted men. "Not a name that I know," he said.

At the corner of Fourth and Brannan Streets, he turned and stood for some time gazing back at the church. He still carried his hat in his hand, and as he

dwelling houses. The opposite side of the street is occupied by a lumber-yard, and near the corner, a dingy little restaurant. He turned unexpectedly, and surprised me watching him. He smiled down at me kindly. "I reckon I am about the last of the old-timers," he said.

He wanted next to go to Telegraph Hill. I was trying to decide which street car would take us nearest, but he suggested that we walk, and then we could see all the down-town buildings on our way.

We walked up Fourth Street, down Market Street, and up Montgomery. My friend walked out near the curbing, so as to get the best possible view of the buildings on both sides of the street. Of each building, he asked me if it had been burned, if the new building had been erected on the old foundations, who was the architect, who was the owner, how much did the erection cost, what was the rent, how many stories was it, and was there still water in the basement.

All I was able to answer was that they still have to pump water out of the basements. I was beginning to realize, with somewhat of astonishment, how many things I do not know about San Francisco.

At first, on my being unable to say how high a building was, my friend essayed to count the stories from where he stood, but owing to the glare of the sun, the noise and bustle of traffic, and so on, results were not satisfactory, and he desisted.

"That fire must have been a corker!" he repeated, several times. His tone was indulgent, as though it was just like San Francisco, if it must have a fire, to have a corker!

We traversed every inch of Telegraph Hill. My friend had his cane to assist him over the ups and downs, and I clambered after, as best I could. Children stopped playing to stare at us, and the women, leaning out of windows, and standing in open doorways, broke off their everlasting chattering long enough to stare at us.

On one crooked side-street, we met a very especially dirty baby. I think even according to the standards of Telegraph Hill, it would be considered a dirty baby. It was all alone. I have no idea how old it might have been. Its hair was clipped close like a boy, and it wore earrings. What served it for apparel was equally contradictory as an indiction as to what its sex might be.

My friend bent way down in an endeavor to get on a level with the child. "What are you doing out here?" he asked.

The baby looked up at him with round, uncomprehending eyes. It probably did not understand a word of English.

My friend clapped his hands twice, close to the child's face. "Why don't you go home?" he asked.

The baby backed away, and looked ready to cry.

"Wait now, until I see," said my friend; "wait now until I see, if perhaps I might not have a dime about me!" He placed a ten-cent piece in the baby's hand.

The child looked at the money intently, and then up at us. There seemed to be a gleam of understanding in its eyes.

"Is that good for sweets, eh?" asked my friend.

Very deliberately, the child closed its fingers on the money, and turned from us and truddled down the street on its little bow legs.

"He knows what that is, right enough, the little rogue!" said my friend.

At the top of the hill, my friend stood and took a survey of the city. "The old town certainly has seen changes," he said; "many changes!".

From Telegraph Hill, we rode to the Fine Arts Palace in the Exposition Grounds. From my experiences in the down-town district, I had expected a multitude of questions at the Fair Grounds, but I escaped quite easily. He was greatly interested, of course; but it is Rincon Hill, and Brannan Street, and Montgomery Street that he loves.

Going back to town from the Fine Arts Palace, we rode on the little cable hill car. Just as the car was mounting the first steep hill, my friend decided he felt a draught. He rose, and with his cane, proceeded to close the ventilators. The

car gave a sudden jolt, and my friend lurched against a woman, treading on her toes, and dislocating her hat. Holding his cane and his hat in one hand, and clinging precariously to a strap with the other, he apologized, explaining that his sealegs are not as good now as when he was a young fellow. From her expression,

one would not say that the woman was altogether pleased.

When the car reached the top of the hill, all the ventilators had not yet been closed. The people who had ridden up with us left the car, and others who were going down hill got on, while I sat and waited. The closing of the ventilators was rather a difficult task. They probably had been open, just as they were, all summer. Finally, my friend brought the last, and most refractory, one to with a sharp impact, and turned to the somewhat indignant conductor. "There now, my lad, I fixed them as they should be," he said.

We had lunch down-town, and my friend delivered, to a very apparently bored waitress, a discourse on the cultivation of coffee, which as to clearness and detail, might well put Burton Holmes to shame.

We spent the afternoon at Golden Gate Park, and I do believe that on that one afternoon I saw more of Golden Gate Park than I had ever seen on all the occasions I have been there before, put together.

At half past six, we were down-town again, having dinner. I had walked so much, and looked at so many different objects, and had done so much talking since eight o'clock that morning, that my head was fairly swimming. My companion sat opposite me at the table, as fresh as a daisy.

During the course of the meal, it was borne in on my dazed mind that he was suggesting that we go to the theatre. I could hardly believe it, but I thought if a man old enough to be my grandfather

could stand it, I would not cry quits. I was strengthened in my heroic attitude by the reflection that it would be impossible to obtain seats at that late hour.

The long line of people in front of the box office was a very hopeful sight to me. My friend led me to one side, where a policeman was standing, and told the policeman that he would leave the young lady there while he bought tickets. The policeman saluted, and indicated that he would keep an eye on the young lady.

My friend walked directly to the ticket office, and reaching his long arm beyond the people who were nearest the window, rapped on the marble edge with his cane, and ordered two seats. Without a murmur, the man inside the window handed out two tickets.

Our seats in the theatre were threequarters way back. During the intermission, the doors in back were opened. My friend shifted in his seat, and I watched him nervously. He climbed out to the aisle. "Close the doors, or we will all be frosted," he said in loud, clear tones.

Instantly the buzz of conversation in the down-stairs portion of the house ceased, and all heads were turned toward where my friend stood in the aisle, in the majesty of his white goatee and his gold-headed cane. For a minute people seemed to think he was a part of the performance.

"Close them," he repeated, utterly oblivious of the staring eyes.

By then it was time for the next number, and the doors were closed.

After the theatre we had supper. Looking about him, my friend decided that the women of San Francisco today are not as pretty as when he was a young fellow. He recalled by name all the pretty ones he had known. He told me what an especially pretty girl the aunt for whom I am named was, and added that I do not in the least resemble her.

It was two-fifteen A. M., when I reached home, and my welcome bed.