Banned Books week

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Porphyria's Lover

The rain set early in tonight,


The sullen wind was soon awake,

It tore the elm-tops down for spite,

And did its worst to vex the lake:

I listened with heart fit to break.

When glided in Porphyria; straight

She shut the cold out and the storm,

And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;

Which done, she rose, and from her form

Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,

And laid her soiled gloves by, untied

Her hat and let the damp hair fall,

And, last, she sat down by my side

And called me. When no voice replied,

She put my arm about her waist,

And made her smooth white shoulder bare,

And all her yellow hair displaced,

And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,

And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,

Murmuring how she loved me — she

Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,

To set its struggling passion free

From pride, and vainer ties dissever,

And give herself to me forever.

But passion sometimes would prevail,

Nor could tonight's gay feast restrain

A sudden thought of one so pale

For love of her, and all in vain:

So, she was come through wind and rain.

Be sure I looked up at her eyes

Happy and proud; at last l knew

Porphyria worshiped me: surprise

Made my heart swell, and still it grew

While I debated what to do.

That moment she was mine, mine, fair,

Perfectly pure and good: I found

A thing to do, and all her hair

In one long yellow string l wound

Three times her little throat around,

And strangled her. No pain felt she;

I am quite sure she felt no pain.

As a shut bud that holds a bee,

I warily oped her lids: again

Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.

And l untightened next the tress

About her neck; her cheek once more

Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:

I propped her head up as before,

Only, this time my shoulder bore

Her head, which droops upon it still:

The smiling rosy little head,

So glad it has its utmost will,

That all it scorned at once is fled,

And I, its love, am gained instead!

Porphyria's love: she guessed not how

Her darling one wish would be heard.

And thus we sit together now,

And all night long we have not stirred,

And yet God has not said a word!

~Robert Browning~

Tobermory

It was a chill, rain-washed afternoon of a late August day, that indefinite
season when partridges are still in security or cold storage, and there is
nothing to hunt unless one is bounded on the north by the Bristol Channel,
in which case one may lawfully gallop after fat red stags. Lady Blemley's
house-party was not bounded on the north by the Bristol Channel, hence there
was a full gathering of her guests round the tea-table on this particular
afternoon. And, in spite of the blankness of the season and the triteness of
the occasion, there was no trace in the company of that fatigued
restlessness which means a dread of the pianola and a subdued hankering for
auction bridge. The undisguised open-mouthed attention of the entire party
was fixed on the homely negative personality of Mr. Cornelius Appin. Of all
her guests, he was the one who had come to Lady Blemley with the vaguest
reputation. Some one had said he was "clever," and he had got his invitation
in the moderate expectation, on the part of his hostess, that some portion
at least of his cleverness would be contributed to the general
entertainment. Until tea-time that day she had been unable to discover in
what direction, if any, his cleverness lay. He was neither a wit nor a
croquet champion, a hypnotic force nor a begetter of amateur theatricals.
Neither did his exterior suggest the sort of man in whom women are willing
to pardon a generous measure of mental deficiency. He had subsided into mere
Mr. Appin, and the Cornelius seemed a piece of transparent baptismal bluff.
And now he was claiming to have launched on the world a discovery beside
which the invention of gunpowder, of the printing-press, and of steam
locomotion were inconsiderable trifles. Science had made bewildering strides
in many directions during recent decades, but this thing seemed to belong to
the domain of miracle rather than to scientific achievement.

"And do you really ask us to believe," Sir Wilfrid was saying, "that you
have discovered a means for instructing animals in the art of human speech,
and that dear old Tobermory has proved your first successful pupil?"

"It is a problem at which I have worked for the last seventeen years," said
Mr. Appin, "but only during the last eight or nine months have I been
rewarded with glimmerings of success. Of course I have experimented with
thousands of animals, but latterly only with cats, those wonderful creatures
which have assimilated themselves so marvellously with our civilization
while retaining all their highly developed feral instincts. Here and there
among cats one comes across an outstanding superior intellect, just as one
does among the ruck of human beings, and when I made the acquaintance of
Tobermory a week ago I saw at once that I was in contact with a "Beyond-cat"
of extraordinary intelligence. I had gone far along the road to success in
recent experiments; with Tobermory, as you call him, I have reached the
goal."

Mr. Appin concluded his remarkable statement in a voice which he strove to
divest of a triumphant inflection. No one said "Rats," though Clovis's lips
moved in a monosyllabic contortion, which probably invoked those rodents of
disbelief.

"And do you mean to say," asked Miss Resker, after a slight pause, "that you
have taught Tobermory to say and understand easy sentences of one syllable?"

"My dear Miss Resker," said the wonder-worker patiently, "one teaches little
children and savages and backward adults in that piecemeal fashion; when one
has once solved the problem of making a beginning with an animal of highly
developed intelligence one has no need for those halting methods. Tobermory
can speak our language with perfect correctness."

This time Clovis very distinctly said, "Beyond-rats!" Sir Wilfred was more
polite but equally sceptical.

"Hadn't we better have the cat in and judge for ourselves?" suggested Lady
Blemley.

Sir Wilfred went in search of the animal, and the company settled themselves
down to the languid expectation of witnessing some more or less adroit
drawing-room ventriloquism.

In a minute Sir Wilfred was back in the room, his face white beneath its tan
and his eyes dilated with excitement.

"By Gad, it's true!"

His agitation was unmistakably genuine, and his hearers started forward in a
thrill of wakened interest.

Collapsing into an armchair he continued breathlessly:

"I found him dozing in the smoking-room, and called out to him to come for
his tea. He blinked at me in his usual way, and I said, 'Come on, Toby;
don't keep us waiting' and, by Gad! he drawled out in a most horribly
natural voice that he'd come when he dashed well pleased! I nearly jumped
out of my skin!"

Appin had preached to absolutely incredulous hearers; Sir Wilfred's
statement carried instant conviction. A Babel-like chorus of startled
exclamation arose, amid which the scientist sat mutely enjoying the first
fruit of his stupendous discovery.

In the midst of the clamour Tobermory entered the room and made his way with
velvet tread and studied unconcern across the group seated round the
tea-table.

A sudden hush of awkwardness and constraint fell on the company. Somehow
there seemed an element of embarrassment in addressing on equal terms a
domestic cat of acknowledged dental ability.

"Will you have some milk, Tobermory?" asked Lady Blemley in a rather
strained voice.

"I don't mind if I do," was the response, couched in a tone of even
indifference. A shiver of suppressed excitement went through the listeners,
and Lady Blemley might be excused for pouring out the saucerful of milk
rather unsteadily.

"I'm afraid I've spilt a good deal of it," she said apologetically.

"After all, it's not my Axminster," was Tobermory's rejoinder.

Another silence fell on the group, and then Miss Resker, in her best
district-visitor manner, asked if the human language had been difficult to
learn. Tobermory looked squarely at her for a moment and then fixed his gaze
serenely on the middle distance. It was obvious that boring questions lay
outside his scheme of life.

"What do you think of human intelligence?" asked Mavis Pellington lamely.

"Of whose intelligence in particular?" asked Tobermory coldly.

"Oh, well, mine for instance," said Mavis with a feeble laugh.

"You put me in an embarrassing position," said Tobermory, whose tone and
attitude certainly did not suggest a shred of embarrassment. "When your
inclusion in this house-party was suggested Sir Wilfrid protested that you
were the most brainless woman of his acquaintance, and that there was a wide
distinction between hospitality and the care of the feeble-minded. Lady
Blemley replied that your lack of brain-power was the precise quality which
had earned you your invitation, as you were the only person she could think
of who might be idiotic enough to buy their old car. You know, the one they
call 'The Envy of Sisyphus,' because it goes quite nicely up-hill if you
push it."

Lady Blemley's protestations would have had greater effect if she had not
casually suggested to Mavis only that morning that the car in question would
be just the thing for her down at her Devonshire home.

Major Barfield plunged in heavily to effect a diversion.

"How about your carryings-on with the tortoise-shell puss up at the stables,
eh?"

The moment he had said it every one realized the blunder.

"One does not usually discuss these matters in public," said Tobermory
frigidly. "From a slight observation of your ways since you've been in this
house I should imagine you'd find it inconvenient if I were to shift the
conversation to your own little affairs."

The panic which ensued was not confined to the Major.

"Would you like to go and see if cook has got your dinner ready?" suggested
Lady Blemley hurriedly, affecting to ignore the fact that it wanted at least
two hours to Tobermory's dinner-time.

"Thanks," said Tobermory, "not quite so soon after my tea. I don't want to
die of indigestion."

"Cats have nine lives, you know," said Sir Wilfred heartily.

"Possibly," answered Tobermory; "but only one liver."

"Adelaide!" said Mrs. Cornett, "do you mean to encourage that cat to go out
and gossip about us in the servants' hall?"

The panic had indeed become general. A narrow ornamental balustrade ran in
front of most of the bedroom windows at the Towers, and it was recalled with
dismay that this had formed a favourite promenade for Tobermory at all
hours, whence he could watch the pigeons and heaven knew what else besides.
If he intended to become reminiscent in his present outspoken strain the
effect would be something more than disconcerting. Mrs. Cornett, who spent
much time at her toilet table, and whose complexion was reputed to be of a
nomadic though punctual disposition, looked as ill at ease as the Major.
Miss Scrawen, who wrote fiercely sensuous poetry and led a blameless life,
merely displayed irritation; if you are methodical and virtuous in private
you don't necessarily want everyone to know it. Bertie van Tahn, who was so
depraved at 17 that he had long ago given up trying to be any worse, turned
a dull shade of gardenia white, but he did not commit the error of dashing
out of the room like Odo Finsberry, a young gentleman who was understood to
be reading for the Church and who was possibly disturbed at the thought of
scandals he might hear concerning other people. Clovis had the presence of
mind to maintain a composed exterior; privately he was calculating how long
it would take to procure a box of fancy mice through the agency of the
Exchange and Mart as a species of hush-money.

Even in a delicate situation like the present, Agnes Resker could not endure
to remain long in the background.

"Why did I ever come down here?" she asked dramatically.

Tobermory immediately accepted the opening.

"Judging by what you said to Mrs. Cornett on the croquet-lawn yesterday, you
were out of food. You described the Blemleys as the dullest people to stay
with that you knew, but said they were clever enough to employ a first-rate
cook; otherwise they'd find it difficult to get any one to come down a
second time."

"There's not a word of truth in it! I appeal to Mrs. Cornett" exclaimed the
discomfited Agnes.

"Mrs. Cornett repeated your remark afterwards to Bertie van Tahn," continued
Tobermory, "and said, 'That woman is a regular Hunger Marcher; she'd go
anywhere for four square meals a day,' and Bertie van Tahn said"

At this point the chronicle mercifully ceased. Tobermory had caught a
glimpse of the big yellow tom from the Rectory working his way through the
shrubbery towards the stable wing. In a flash he had vanished through the
open French window.

With the disappearance of his too brilliant pupil Cornelius Appin found
himself beset by a hurricane of bitter upbraiding, anxious inquiry, and
frightened entreaty. The responsibility for the situation lay with him, and
he must prevent matters from becoming worse. Could Tobermory impart his
dangerous gift to other cats? was the first question he had to answer. It
was possible, he replied, that he might have initiated his intimate friend
the stable puss into his new accomplishment, but it was unlikely that his
teaching could have taken a wider range as yet.

"Then," said Mrs. Cornett, "Tobermory may be a valuable cat and a great pet;
but I'm sure you'll agree, Adelaide, that both he and the stable cat must be
done away with without delay."

"You don't suppose I've enjoyed the last quarter of an hour, do you?" said
Lady Blemley bitterly. "My husband and I are very fond of Tobermory at
least, we were before this horrible accomplishment was infused into him; but
now, of course, the only thing is to have him destroyed as soon as
possible."

"We can put some strychnine in the scraps he always gets at dinner-time,"
said Sir Wilfred, "and I will go and drown the stable cat myself. The
coachman will be very sore at losing his pet, but I'll say a very catching
form of mange has broken out in both cats and we're afraid of it spreading
to the kennels."

"But my great discovery!" expostulated Mr. Appin; "after all my years of
research and experiment"

"You can go and experiment on the short-horns at the farm, who are under
proper control," said Mrs. Cornett, "or the elephants at the Zoological
Gardens. They're said to be highly intelligent, and they have this
recommendation, that they don't come creeping about our bedrooms and under
chairs, and so forth."

An archangel ecstatically proclaiming the Millennium, and then finding that
it clashed unpardonably with Henley and would have to be indefinitely
postponed, could hardly have felt more crestfallen than Cornelius Appin at
the reception of his wonderful achievement. Public opinion, however, was
against him in fact, had the general voice been consulted on the subject it
is probable that a strong minority vote would have been in favour of
including him in the strychnine diet.

Defective train arrangements and a nervous desire to see matters brought to
a finish prevented an immediate dispersal of the party, but dinner that
evening was not a social success. Sir Wilfred had had rather a trying time
with the stable cat and subsequently with the coachman. Agnes Resker
ostentatiously limited her repast to a morsel of dry toast, which she bit as
though it were a personal enemy; while Mavis Pellington maintained a
vindictive silence throughout the meal. Lady Blemley kept up a flow of what
she hoped was conversation, but her attention was fixed on the doorway. A
plateful of carefully dosed fish scraps was in readiness on the sideboard,
but the sweets and savoury and dessert went their way, and no Tobermory
appeared in the dining-room or kitchen.

The sepulchral dinner was cheerful compared with the subsequent vigil in the
smoking-room. Eating and drinking had at least supplied a distraction and
cloak to the prevailing embarrassment. Bridge was out of the question in the
general tension of nerves and tempers, and after Odo Finsberry had given a
lugubrious rendering of 'Melisande in the Wood' to a frigid audience, music
was tacitly avoided. At eleven the servants went to bed, announcing that the
small window in the pantry had been left open as usual for Tobermory's
private use. The guests read steadily through the current batch of
magazines, and fell back gradually on the "Badminton Library" and bound
volumes of Punch. Lady Blemley made periodic visits to the pantry, returning
each time with an expression of listless depression which forestalled
questioning.

At two o'clock Clovis broke the dominating silence.

"He won't turn up tonight. He's probably in the local newspaper office at
the present moment, dictating the first installment of his reminiscences.
Lady What's-her-name's book won't be in it. It will be the event of the
day."

Having made this contribution to the general cheerfulness, Clovis went to
bed. At long intervals the various members of the house-party followed his
example.

The servants taking round the early tea made a uniform announcement in reply
to a uniform question. Tobermory had not returned.

Breakfast was, if anything, a more unpleasant function than dinner had been,
but before its conclusion the situation was relieved. Tobermory's corpse was
brought in from the shrubbery, where a gardener had just discovered it. From
the bites on his throat and the yellow fur which coated his claws it was
evident that he had fallen in unequal combat with the big Tom from the
Rectory.

By midday most of the guests had quited the Towers, and after lunch Lady
Blemley had sufficiently recovered her spirits to write an extremely nasty
letter to the Rectory about the loss of her valuable pet.

Tobermory had been Appin's one successful pupil, and he was destined to have
no successor. A few weeks later an elephant in the Dresden Zoological
Garden, which had shown no previous signs of irritability, broke loose and
killed an Englishman who had apparently been teasing it. The victim's name
was variously reported in the papers as Oppin and Eppelin, but his front
name was faithfully rendered Cornelius.

"If he was trying German irregular verbs on the poor beast," said Clovis,
"he deserved all he got."

By: Saki

Book of the month- sept

The Vacant Lot

When it became generally known in Townsend Centre that the Townsends
were going to move to the city, there was great excitement and dismay.
For the Townsends to move was about equivalent to the town's moving.
The Townsend ancestors had founded the village a hundred years ago.  The
first Townsend had kept a wayside hostelry for man and beast, known as
the "Sign of the Leopard."  The sign-board, on which the leopard was
painted a bright blue, was still extant, and prominently so, being
nailed over the present Townsend's front door.  This Townsend, by name
David, kept the village store.  There had been no tavern since the
railroad was built through Townsend Centre in his father's day.
Therefore the family, being ousted by the march of progress from their
chosen employment, took up with a general country store as being the
next thing to a country tavern, the principal difference consisting in
the fact that all the guests were transients, never requiring
bedchambers, securing their rest on the tops of sugar and flour barrels
and codfish boxes, and their refreshment from stray nibblings at the
stock in trade, to the profitless deplenishment of raisins and loaf
sugar and crackers and cheese.

The flitting of the Townsends from the home of their ancestors was due
to a sudden access of wealth from the death of a relative and the desire
of Mrs. Townsend to secure better advantages for her son George, sixteen
years old, in the way of education, and for her daughter Adrianna, ten
years older, better matrimonial opportunities.  However, this last
inducement for leaving Townsend Centre was not openly stated, only
ingeniously surmised by the neighbours.

"Sarah Townsend don't think there's anybody in Townsend Centre fit for
her Adrianna to marry, and so she's goin' to take her to Boston to see
if she can't pick up somebody there," they said.  Then they wondered
what Abel Lyons would do.  He had been a humble suitor for Adrianna for
years, but her mother had not approved, and Adrianna, who was dutiful,
had repulsed him delicately and rather sadly.  He was the only lover
whom she had ever had, and she felt sorry and grateful; she was a plain,
awkward girl, and had a patient recognition of the fact.

But her mother was ambitious, more so than her father, who was rather
pugnaciously satisfied with what he had, and not easily disposed to
change.  However, he yielded to his wife and consented to sell out his
business and purchase a house in Boston and move there.

David Townsend was curiously unlike the line of ancestors from whom he
had come.  He had either retrograded or advanced, as one might look at
it.  His moral character was certainly better, but he had not the fiery
spirit and eager grasp at advantage which had distinguished them.
Indeed, the old Townsends, though prominent and respected as men of
property and influence, had reputations not above suspicions.  There was
more than one dark whisper regarding them handed down from mother to son
in the village, and especially was this true of the first Townsend, he
who built the tavern bearing the Sign of the Blue Leopard.  His
portrait, a hideous effort of contemporary art, hung in the garret of
David Townsend's home.  There was many a tale of wild roistering, if no
worse, in that old roadhouse, and high stakes, and quarreling in cups,
and blows, and money gotten in evil fashion, and the matter hushed up
with a high hand for inquirers by the imperious Townsends who terrorized
everybody.  David Townsend terrorized nobody.  He had gotten his little
competence from his store by honest methods--the exchanging of sterling
goods and true weights for country produce and country shillings.  He
was sober and reliable, with intense self-respect and a decided talent
for the management of money.  It was principally for this reason that he
took great delight in his sudden wealth by legacy.  He had thereby
greater opportunities for the exercise of his native shrewdness in a
bargain.  This he evinced in his purchase of a house in Boston.

One day in spring the old Townsend house was shut up, the Blue Leopard
was taken carefully down from his lair over the front door, the family
chattels were loaded on the train, and the Townsends departed.  It was a
sad and eventful day for Townsend Centre.  A man from Barre had rented
the store--David had decided at the last not to sell--and the old
familiars congregated in melancholy fashion and talked over the
situation.  An enormous pride over their departed townsman became
evident.  They paraded him, flaunting him like a banner in the eyes of
the new man.  "David is awful smart," they said; "there won't nobody get
the better of him in the city if he has lived in Townsend Centre all his
life.  He's got his eyes open.  Know what he paid for his house in
Boston? Well, sir, that house cost twenty-five thousand dollars, and
David he bought it for five.  Yes, sir, he did."

"Must have been some out about it," remarked the new man, scowling over
his counter.  He was beginning to feel his disparaging situation.

"Not an out, sir.  David he made sure on't.  Catch him gettin' bit.
Everythin' was in apple-pie order, hot an' cold water and all, and in
one of the best locations of the city--real high-up street. David he
said the rent in that street was never under a thousand. Yes, sir, David
he got a bargain--five thousand dollars for a
twenty-five-thousand-dollar house."

"Some out about it!" growled the new man over the counter.

However, as his fellow townsmen and allies stated, there seemed to be no
doubt about the desirableness of the city house which David Townsend had
purchased and the fact that he had secured it for an absurdly low price.
The whole family were at first suspicious.  It was ascertained that the
house had cost a round sum only a few years ago; it was in perfect
repair; nothing whatever was amiss with plumbing, furnace, anything.
There was not even a soap factory within smelling distance, as Mrs.
Townsend had vaguely surmised.  She was sure that she had heard of
houses being undesirable for such reasons, but there was no soap
factory.  They all sniffed and peeked; when the first rainfall came they
looked at the ceiling, confidently expecting to see dark spots where the
leaks had commenced, but there were none.  They were forced to confess
that their suspicions were allayed, that the house was perfect, even
overshadowed with the mystery of a lower price than it was worth.  That,
however, was an additional perfection in the opinion of the Townsends,
who had their share of New England thrift.  They had lived just one
month in their new house, and were happy, although at times somewhat
lonely from missing the society of Townsend Centre, when the trouble
began.  The Townsends, although they lived in a fine house in a genteel,
almost fashionable, part of the city, were true to their antecedents and
kept, as they had been accustomed, only one maid.  She was the daughter
of a farmer on the outskirts of their native village, was middle-aged,
and had lived with them for the last ten years.  One pleasant Monday
morning she rose early and did the family washing before breakfast,
which had been prepared by Mrs. Townsend and Adrianna, as was their
habit on washing-days.  The family were seated at the breakfast table in
their basement dining-room, and this maid, whose name was Cordelia, was
hanging out the clothes in the vacant lot.  This vacant lot seemed a
valuable one, being on a corner.  It was rather singular that it had not
been built upon. The Townsends had wondered at it and agreed that they
would have preferred their own house to be there.  They had, however,
utilized it as far as possible with their innocent, rural disregard of
property rights in unoccupied land.

"We might just as well hang out our washing in that vacant lot," Mrs.
Townsend had told Cordelia the first Monday of their stay in the house.
"Our little yard ain't half big enough for all our clothes, and it is
sunnier there, too."

So Cordelia had hung out the wash there for four Mondays, and this was
the fifth.  The breakfast was about half finished--they had reached the
buckwheat cakes--when this maid came rushing into the dining-room and
stood regarding them, speechless, with a countenance indicative of the
utmost horror.  She was deadly pale. Her hands, sodden with soapsuds,
hung twitching at her sides in the folds of her calico gown; her very
hair, which was light and sparse, seemed to bristle with fear.  All the
Townsends turned and looked at her.  David and George rose with a
half-defined idea of burglars.

"Cordelia Battles, what is the matter?" cried Mrs. Townsend. Adrianna
gasped for breath and turned as white as the maid.  "What is the
matter?" repeated Mrs. Townsend, but the maid was unable to speak.  Mrs.
Townsend, who could be peremptory, sprang up, ran to the frightened
woman and shook her violently.  "Cordelia Battles, you speak," said she,
"and not stand there staring that way, as if you were struck dumb!  What
is the matter with you?"

Then Cordelia spoke in a fainting voice.

"There's--somebody else--hanging out clothes--in the vacant lot," she
gasped, and clutched at a chair for support.

"Who?" cried Mrs. Townsend, rousing to indignation, for already she had
assumed a proprietorship in the vacant lot.  "Is it the folks in the
next house?  I'd like to know what right they have!  We are next to that
vacant lot."

"I--dunno--who it is," gasped Cordelia.  "Why, we've seen that girl next
door go to mass every morning," said Mrs. Townsend.  "She's got a fiery
red head.  Seems as if you might know her by this time, Cordelia."

"It ain't that girl," gasped Cordelia.  Then she added in a horror-
stricken voice, "I couldn't see who 'twas."

They all stared.

"Why couldn't you see?" demanded her mistress.  "Are you struck blind?"

"No, ma'am."

"Then why couldn't you see?"

"All I could see was--" Cordelia hesitated, with an expression of the
utmost horror.

"Go on," said Mrs. Townsend, impatiently.

"All I could see was the shadow of somebody, very slim, hanging out the
clothes, and--"

"What?"

"I could see the shadows of the things flappin' on their line."

"You couldn't see the clothes?"

"Only the shadow on the ground."

"What kind of clothes were they?"

"Queer," replied Cordelia, with a shudder.

"If I didn't know you so well, I should think you had been drinking,"
said Mrs. Townsend.  "Now, Cordelia Battles, I'm going out in that
vacant lot and see myself what you're talking about."

"I can't go," gasped the woman.

With that Mrs. Townsend and all the others, except Adrianna, who
remained to tremble with the maid, sallied forth into the vacant lot.
They had to go out the area gate into the street to reach it. It was
nothing unusual in the way of vacant lots.  One large poplar tree, the
relic of the old forest which had once flourished there, twinkled in one
corner; for the rest, it was overgrown with coarse weeds and a few dusty
flowers.  The Townsends stood just inside the rude board fence which
divided the lot from the street and stared with wonder and horror, for
Cordelia had told the truth.  They all saw what she had described--the
shadow of an exceedingly slim woman moving along the ground with
up-stretched arms, the shadows of strange, nondescript garments flapping
from a shadowy line, but when they looked up for the substance of the
shadows nothing was to be seen except the clear, blue October air.

"My goodness!" gasped Mrs. Townsend.  Her face assumed a strange
gathering of wrath in the midst of her terror.  Suddenly she made a
determined move forward, although her husband strove to hold her back.

"You let me be," said she.  She moved forward.  Then she recoiled and
gave a loud shriek.  "The wet sheet flapped in my face," she cried.
"Take me away, take me away!"  Then she fainted.  Between them they got
her back to the house.  "It was awful," she moaned when she came to
herself, with the family all around her where she lay on the dining-room
floor.  "Oh, David, what do you suppose it is?"

"Nothing at all," replied David Townsend stoutly.  He was remarkable for
courage and staunch belief in actualities.  He was now denying to
himself that he had seen anything unusual.

"Oh, there was," moaned his wife.

"I saw something," said George, in a sullen, boyish bass.

The maid sobbed convulsively and so did Adrianna for sympathy.

"We won't talk any about it," said David.  "Here, Jane, you drink this
hot tea--it will do you good; and Cordelia, you hang out the clothes in
our own yard.  George, you go and put up the line for her."

"The line is out there," said George, with a jerk of his shoulder.

"Are you afraid?"

"No, I ain't," replied the boy resentfully, and went out with a pale
face.

After that Cordelia hung the Townsend wash in the yard of their own
house, standing always with her back to the vacant lot.  As for David
Townsend, he spent a good deal of his time in the lot watching the
shadows, but he came to no explanation, although he strove to satisfy
himself with many.

"I guess the shadows come from the smoke from our chimneys, or else the
poplar tree," he said.

"Why do the shadows come on Monday mornings, and no other?" demanded his
wife.

David was silent.

Very soon new mysteries arose.  One day Cordelia rang the dinner- bell
at their usual dinner hour, the same as in Townsend Centre, high noon,
and the family assembled.  With amazement Adrianna looked at the dishes
on the table.

"Why, that's queer!" she said.

"What's queer?" asked her mother.

Cordelia stopped short as she was about setting a tumbler of water
beside a plate, and the water slopped over.

"Why," said Adrianna, her face paling, "I--thought there was boiled
dinner.  I--smelt cabbage cooking."

"I knew there would something else come up," gasped Cordelia, leaning
hard on the back of Adrianna's chair.

"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Townsend sharply, but her own face began
to assume the shocked pallour which it was so easy nowadays for all
their faces to assume at the merest suggestion of anything out of the
common.

"I smelt cabbage cooking all the morning up in my room," Adrianna said
faintly, "and here's codfish and potatoes for dinner."

The Townsends all looked at one another.  David rose with an exclamation
and rushed out of the room.  The others waited tremblingly.  When he
came back his face was lowering.

"What did you--" Mrs. Townsend asked hesitatingly.

"There's some smell of cabbage out there," he admitted reluctantly. Then
he looked at her with a challenge.  "It comes from the next house," he
said.  "Blows over our house."

"Our house is higher."

"I don't care; you can never account for such things."

"Cordelia," said Mrs. Townsend, "you go over to the next house and you
ask if they've got cabbage for dinner."

Cordelia switched out of the room, her mouth set hard.  She came back
promptly.

"Says they never have cabbage," she announced with gloomy triumph and a
conclusive glance at Mr. Townsend.  "Their girl was real sassy."

"Oh, father, let's move away; let's sell the house," cried Adrianna in a
panic-stricken tone.

"If you think I'm going to sell a house that I got as cheap as this one
because we smell cabbage in a vacant lot, you're mistaken," replied
David firmly.

"It isn't the cabbage alone," said Mrs. Townsend.

"And a few shadows," added David.  "I am tired of such nonsense.  I
thought you had more sense, Jane."

"One of the boys at school asked me if we lived in the house next to the
vacant lot on Wells Street and whistled when I said 'Yes,'" remarked
George.

"Let him whistle," said Mr. Townsend.

After a few hours the family, stimulated by Mr. Townsend's calm, common
sense, agreed that it was exceedingly foolish to be disturbed by a
mysterious odour of cabbage.  They even laughed at themselves.

"I suppose we have got so nervous over those shadows hanging out clothes
that we notice every little thing," conceded Mrs. Townsend.

"You will find out some day that that is no more to be regarded than the
cabbage," said her husband.

"You can't account for that wet sheet hitting my face," said Mrs.
Townsend, doubtfully.

"You imagined it."

"I FELT it."

That afternoon things went on as usual in the household until nearly
four o'clock.  Adrianna went downtown to do some shopping. Mrs. Townsend
sat sewing beside the bay window in her room, which was a front one in
the third story.  George had not got home.  Mr. Townsend was writing a
letter in the library.  Cordelia was busy in the basement; the twilight,
which was coming earlier and earlier every night, was beginning to
gather, when suddenly there was a loud crash which shook the house from
its foundations.  Even the dishes on the sideboard rattled, and the
glasses rang like bells. The pictures on the walls of Mrs. Townsend's
room swung out from the walls.  But that was not all: every
looking-glass in the house cracked simultaneously--as nearly as they
could judge--from top to bottom, then shivered into fragments over the
floors.  Mrs. Townsend was too frightened to scream.  She sat huddled in
her chair, gasping for breath, her eyes, rolling from side to side in
incredulous terror, turned toward the street.  She saw a great black
group of people crossing it just in front of the vacant lot. There was
something inexpressibly strange and gloomy about this moving group;
there was an effect of sweeping, wavings and foldings of sable draperies
and gleams of deadly white faces; then they passed.  She twisted her
head to see, and they disappeared in the vacant lot.  Mr. Townsend came
hurrying into the room; he was pale, and looked at once angry and
alarmed.

"Did you fall?" he asked inconsequently, as if his wife, who was small,
could have produced such a manifestation by a fall.

"Oh, David, what is it?" whispered Mrs. Townsend.

"Darned if I know!" said David.

"Don't swear.  It's too awful.  Oh, see the looking-glass, David!"

"I see it.  The one over the library mantel is broken, too."

"Oh, it is a sign of death!"

Cordelia's feet were heard as she staggered on the stairs.  She almost
fell into the room.  She reeled over to Mr. Townsend and clutched his
arm.  He cast a sidewise glance, half furious, half commiserating at
her.

"Well, what is it all about?" he asked.

"I don't know.  What is it?  Oh, what is it?  The looking-glass in the
kitchen is broken.  All over the floor.  Oh, oh!  What is it?"

"I don't know any more than you do.  I didn't do it."

"Lookin'-glasses broken is a sign of death in the house," said Cordelia.
"If it's me, I hope I'm ready; but I'd rather die than be so scared as
I've been lately."

Mr. Townsend shook himself loose and eyed the two trembling women with
gathering resolution.

"Now, look here, both of you," he said.  "This is nonsense.  You'll die
sure enough of fright if you keep on this way.  I was a fool myself to
be startled.  Everything it is is an earthquake."

"Oh, David!" gasped his wife, not much reassured.

"It is nothing but an earthquake," persisted Mr. Townsend.  "It acted
just like that.  Things always are broken on the walls, and the middle
of the room isn't affected.  I've read about it."

Suddenly Mrs. Townsend gave a loud shriek and pointed.

"How do you account for that," she cried, "if it's an earthquake? Oh,
oh, oh!"

She was on the verge of hysterics.  Her husband held her firmly by the
arm as his eyes followed the direction of her rigid pointing finger.
Cordelia looked also, her eyes seeming converged to a bright point of
fear.  On the floor in front of the broken looking- glass lay a mass of
black stuff in a grewsome long ridge.

"It's something you dropped there," almost shouted Mr. Townsend.

"It ain't.  Oh!"

Mr. Townsend dropped his wife's arm and took one stride toward the
object.  It was a very long crape veil.  He lifted it, and it floated
out from his arm as if imbued with electricity.

"It's yours," he said to his wife.

"Oh, David, I never had one.  You know, oh, you know I--shouldn't--
unless you died.  How came it there?"

"I'm darned if I know," said David, regarding it.  He was deadly pale,
but still resentful rather than afraid.

"Don't hold it; don't!"

"I'd like to know what in thunder all this means?" said David.  He gave
the thing an angry toss and it fell on the floor in exactly the same
long heap as before.

Cordelia began to weep with racking sobs.  Mrs. Townsend reached out and
caught her husband's hand, clutching it hard with ice-cold fingers.

"What's got into this house, anyhow?" he growled.

"You'll have to sell it.  Oh, David, we can't live here."

"As for my selling a house I paid only five thousand for when it's worth
twenty-five, for any such nonsense as this, I won't!"

David gave one stride toward the black veil, but it rose from the floor
and moved away before him across the room at exactly the same height as
if suspended from a woman's head.  He pursued it, clutching vainly, all
around the room, then he swung himself on his heel with an exclamation
and the thing fell to the floor again in the long heap.  Then were heard
hurrying feet on the stairs and Adrianna burst into the room.  She ran
straight to her father and clutched his arm; she tried to speak, but she
chattered unintelligibly; her face was blue.  Her father shook her
violently.

"Adrianna, do have more sense!" he cried.

"Oh, David, how can you talk so?" sobbed her mother.

"I can't help it.  I'm mad!" said he with emphasis.  "What has got into
this house and you all, anyhow?"

"What is it, Adrianna, poor child," asked her mother.  "Only look what
has happened here."

"It's an earthquake," said her father staunchly; "nothing to be afraid
of."

"How do you account for THAT?" said Mrs. Townsend in an awful voice,
pointing to the veil.

Adrianna did not look--she was too engrossed with her own terrors. She
began to speak in a breathless voice.

"I--was--coming--by the vacant lot," she panted, "and--I--I--had my new
hat in a paper bag and--a parcel of blue ribbon, and--I saw a crowd, an
awful--oh! a whole crowd of people with white faces, as if--they were
dressed all in black."

"Where are they now?"

"I don't know.  Oh!" Adrianna sank gasping feebly into a chair.

"Get her some water, David," sobbed her mother.

David rushed with an impatient exclamation out of the room and returned
with a glass of water which he held to his daughter's lips.

"Here, drink this!" he said roughly.

"Oh, David, how can you speak so?" sobbed his wife.

"I can't help it.  I'm mad clean through," said David.

Then there was a hard bound upstairs, and George entered.  He was very
white, but he grinned at them with an appearance of unconcern.

"Hullo!" he said in a shaking voice, which he tried to control. "What on
earth's to pay in that vacant lot now?"

"Well, what is it?" demanded his father.

"Oh, nothing, only--well, there are lights over it exactly as if there
was a house there, just about where the windows would be.  It looked as
if you could walk right in, but when you look close there are those old
dried-up weeds rattling away on the ground the same as ever.  I looked
at it and couldn't believe my eyes.  A woman saw it, too.  She came
along just as I did.  She gave one look, then she screeched and ran.  I
waited for some one else, but nobody came."

Mr. Townsend rushed out of the room.

"I daresay it'll be gone when he gets there," began George, then he
stared round the room.  "What's to pay here?" he cried.

"Oh, George, the whole house shook all at once, and all the
looking-glasses broke," wailed his mother, and Adrianna and Cordelia
joined.

George whistled with pale lips.  Then Mr. Townsend entered.

"Well," asked George, "see anything?"

"I don't want to talk," said his father.  "I've stood just about
enough."

"We've got to sell out and go back to Townsend Centre," cried his wife
in a wild voice.  "Oh, David, say you'll go back."

"I won't go back for any such nonsense as this, and sell a twenty- five
thousand dollar house for five thousand," said he firmly.

But that very night his resolution was shaken.  The whole family watched
together in the dining-room.  They were all afraid to go to bed--that
is, all except possibly Mr. Townsend.  Mrs. Townsend declared firmly
that she for one would leave that awful house and go back to Townsend
Centre whether he came or not, unless they all stayed together and
watched, and Mr. Townsend yielded.  They chose the dining-room for the
reason that it was nearer the street should they wish to make their
egress hurriedly, and they took up their station around the dining-table
on which Cordelia had placed a luncheon.

"It looks exactly as if we were watching with a corpse," she said in a
horror-stricken whisper.

"Hold your tongue if you can't talk sense," said Mr. Townsend.

The dining-room was very large, finished in oak, with a dark blue paper
above the wainscotting.  The old sign of the tavern, the Blue Leopard,
hung over the mantel-shelf.  Mr. Townsend had insisted on hanging it
there.  He had a curious pride in it.  The family sat together until
after midnight and nothing unusual happened.  Mrs. Townsend began to
nod; Mr. Townsend read the paper ostentatiously. Adrianna and Cordelia
stared with roving eyes about the room, then at each other as if
comparing notes on terror.  George had a book which he studied
furtively.  All at once Adrianna gave a startled exclamation and
Cordelia echoed her.  George whistled faintly. Mrs. Townsend awoke with
a start and Mr. Townsend's paper rattled to the floor.

"Look!" gasped Adrianna.

The sign of the Blue Leopard over the shelf glowed as if a lantern hung
over it.  The radiance was thrown from above.  It grew brighter and
brighter as they watched.  The Blue Leopard seemed to crouch and spring
with life.  Then the door into the front hall opened--the outer door,
which had been carefully locked.  It squeaked and they all recognized
it.  They sat staring.  Mr. Townsend was as transfixed as the rest.
They heard the outer door shut, then the door into the room swung open
and slowly that awful black group of people which they had seen in the
afternoon entered. The Townsends with one accord rose and huddled
together in a far corner; they all held to each other and stared.  The
people, their faces gleaming with a whiteness of death, their black
robes waving and folding, crossed the room.  They were a trifle above
mortal height, or seemed so to the terrified eyes which saw them.  They
reached the mantel-shelf where the sign-board hung, then a black- draped
long arm was seen to rise and make a motion, as if plying a knocker.
Then the whole company passed out of sight, as if through the wall, and
the room was as before.  Mrs. Townsend was shaking in a nervous chill,
Adrianna was almost fainting, Cordelia was in hysterics.  David Townsend
stood glaring in a curious way at the sign of the Blue Leopard.  George
stared at him with a look of horror.  There was something in his
father's face which made him forget everything else.  At last he touched
his arm timidly.

"Father," he whispered.

David turned and regarded him with a look of rage and fury, then his
face cleared; he passed his hand over his forehead.

"Good Lord!  What DID come to me?" he muttered.

"You looked like that awful picture of old Tom Townsend in the garret in
Townsend Centre, father," whimpered the boy, shuddering.

"Should think I might look like 'most any old cuss after such darned
work as this," growled David, but his face was white.  "Go and pour out
some hot tea for your mother," he ordered the boy sharply.  He himself
shook Cordelia violently.  "Stop such actions!" he shouted in her ears,
and shook her again.  "Ain't you a church member?" he demanded; "what be
you afraid of?  You ain't done nothin' wrong, have ye?"

Then Cordelia quoted Scripture in a burst of sobs and laughter.

"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive
me," she cried out.  "If I ain't done wrong, mebbe them that's come
before me did, and when the Evil One and the Powers of Darkness is
abroad I'm liable, I'm liable!" Then she laughed loud and long and
shrill.

"If you don't hush up," said David, but still with that white terror and
horror on his own face, "I'll bundle you out in that vacant lot whether
or no.  I mean it."

Then Cordelia was quiet, after one wild roll of her eyes at him. The
colour was returning to Adrianna's cheeks; her mother was drinking hot
tea in spasmodic gulps.

"It's after midnight," she gasped, "and I don't believe they'll come
again to-night.  Do you, David?"

"No, I don't," said David conclusively.

"Oh, David, we mustn't stay another night in this awful house."

"We won't.  To-morrow we'll pack off bag and baggage to Townsend Centre,
if it takes all the fire department to move us," said David.

Adrianna smiled in the midst of her terror.  She thought of Abel Lyons.

The next day Mr. Townsend went to the real estate agent who had sold him
the house.

"It's no use," he said, "I can't stand it.  Sell the house for what you
can get.  I'll give it away rather than keep it."

Then he added a few strong words as to his opinion of parties who sold
him such an establishment.  But the agent pleaded innocent for the most
part.

"I'll own I suspected something wrong when the owner, who pledged me to
secrecy as to his name, told me to sell that place for what I could get,
and did not limit me.  I had never heard anything, but I began to
suspect something was wrong.  Then I made a few inquiries and found out
that there was a rumour in the neighbourhood that there was something
out of the usual about that vacant lot.  I had wondered myself why it
wasn't built upon.  There was a story about it's being undertaken once,
and the contract made, and the contractor dying; then another man took
it and one of the workmen was killed on his way to dig the cellar, and
the others struck.  I didn't pay much attention to it.  I never believed
much in that sort of thing anyhow, and then, too, I couldn't find out
that there had ever been anything wrong about the house itself, except
as the people who had lived there were said to have seen and heard queer
things in the vacant lot, so I thought you might be able to get along,
especially as you didn't look like a man who was timid, and the house
was such a bargain as I never handled before.  But this you tell me is
beyond belief."

"Do you know the names of the people who formerly owned the vacant lot?"
asked Mr. Townsend.

"I don't know for certain," replied the agent, "for the original owners
flourished long before your or my day, but I do know that the lot goes
by the name of the old Gaston lot.  What's the matter? Are you ill?"

"No; it is nothing," replied Mr. Townsend.  "Get what you can for the
house; perhaps another family might not be as troubled as we have been."

"I hope you are not going to leave the city?" said the agent, urbanely.

"I am going back to Townsend Centre as fast as steam can carry me after
we get packed up and out of that cursed house," replied Mr. David
Townsend.

He did not tell the agent nor any of his family what had caused him to
start when told the name of the former owners of the lot.  He remembered
all at once the story of a ghastly murder which had taken place in the
Blue Leopard.  The victim's name was Gaston and the murderer had never
been discovered.

By:
Mary Wilkins

The Ransom of Red Chief

It looked like a good thing: but wait till I tell you. We were down South, in Alabama--Bill Driscoll and myself-when this kidnapping idea struck us. It was, as Bill afterward expressed it, "during a moment of temporary mental apparition"; but we didn't find that out till later.

There was a town down there, as flat as a flannel-cake, and called Summit, of course. It contained inhabitants of as undeleterious and self-satisfied a class of peasantry as ever clustered around a Maypole.

Bill and me had a joint capital of about six hundred dollars, and we needed just two thousand dollars more to pull off a fraudulent town-lot scheme in Western Illinois with. We talked it over on the front steps of the hotel. Philoprogenitiveness, says we, is strong in semi-rural communities therefore, and for other reasons, a kidnapping project ought to do better there than in the radius of newspapers that send reporters out in plain clothes to stir up talk about such things. We knew that Summit couldn't get after us with anything stronger than constables and, maybe, some lackadaisical bloodhounds and a diatribe or two in the Weekly Farmers' Budget. So, it looked good.

We selected for our victim the only child of a prominent citizen named Ebenezer Dorset. The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser. The kid was a boy of ten, with bas-relief freckles, and hair the colour of the cover of the magazine you buy at the news-stand when you want to catch a train. Bill and me figured that Ebenezer would melt down for a ransom of two thousand dollars to a cent. But wait till I tell you.

About two miles from Summit was a little mountain, covered with a dense cedar brake. On the rear elevation of this mountain was a cave. There we stored provisions.

One evening after sundown, we drove in a buggy past old Dorset's house. The kid was in the street, throwing rocks at a kitten on the opposite fence.

"Hey, little boy!" says Bill, "would you like to have a bag of candy and a nice ride?"

The boy catches Bill neatly in the eye with a piece of brick.

"That will cost the old man an extra five hundred dollars," says Bill, climbing over the wheel.

That boy put up a fight like a welter-weight cinnamon bear; but, at last, we got him down in the bottom of the buggy and drove away. We took him up to the cave, and I hitched the horse in the cedar brake. After dark I drove the buggy to the little village, three miles away, where we had hired it, and walked back to the mountain.

Bill was pasting court-plaster over the scratches and bruises on his features. There was a fire burning behind the big rock at the entrance of the cave, and the boy was watching a pot of boiling coffee, with two buzzard tailfeathers stuck in his red hair. He points a stick at me when I come up, and says:

"Ha! cursed paleface, do you dare to enter the camp of Red Chief, the terror of the plains?"

"He's all right now," says Bill, rolling up his trousers and examining some bruises on his shins. "We're playing Indian. We're making Buffalo Bill's show look like magic-lantern views of Palestine in the town hall. I'm Old Hank, the Trapper, Red Chief's captive, and I'm to be scalped at daybreak. By Geronimo! that kid can kick hard."

Yes, sir, that boy seemed to be having the time of his life. The fun of camping out in a cave had made him forget that he was a captive himself. He immediately christened me Snake-eye, the Spy, and announced that, when his braves returned from the warpath, I was to be broiled at the stake at the rising of the sun.

Then we had supper; and he filled his mouth full of bacon and bread and gravy, and began to talk. He made a during-dinner speech something like this:

"I like this fine. I never camped out before; but I had a pet 'possum once, and I was nine last birthday. I hate to go to school. Rats ate up sixteen of Jimmy Talbot's aunt's speckled hen's eggs. Are there any real Indians in these woods? I want some more gravy. Does the trees moving make the wind blow? We had five puppies. What makes your nose so red, Hank? My father has lots of money. Are the stars hot? I whipped Ed Walker twice, Saturday. I don't like girls. You dassent catch toads unless with a string. Do oxen make any noise? Why are oranges round? Have you got beds to sleep on in this cave? Amos Murray has got six toes. A parrot can talk, but a monkey or a fish can't. How many does it take to make twelve?"

Every few minutes he would remember that he was a pesky redskin, and pick up his stick rifle and tiptoe to the mouth of the cave to rubber for the scouts of the hated paleface. Now and then he would let out a warwhoop that made Old Hank the Trapper, shiver. That boy had Bill terrorized from the start.

"Red Chief," says I to the kid, "would you like to go home?"

"Aw, what for?" says he. "I don't have any fun at home. I hate to go to school. I like to camp out. You won't take me back home again, Snake-eye, will you?"

"Not right away," says I. "We'll stay here in the cave a while."

"All right!" says he. "That'll be fine. I never had such fun in all my life."

We went to bed about eleven o'clock. We spread down some wide blankets and quilts and put Red Chief between us. We weren't afraid he'd run away. He kept us awake for three hours, jumping up and reaching for his rifle and screeching: "Hist! pard," in mine and Bill's ears, as the fancied crackle of a twig or the rustle of a leaf revealed to his young imagination the stealthy approach of the outlaw band. At last, I fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed that I had been kidnapped and chained to a tree by a ferocious pirate with red hair.

Just at daybreak, I was awakened by a series of awful screams from Bill. They weren't yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, or yawps, such as you'd expect from a manly set of vocal organs--they were simply indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see ghosts or caterpillars. It's an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak.

I jumped up to see what the matter was. Red Chief was sitting on Bill's chest, with one hand twined in Bill's hair. In the other he had the sharp case-knife we used for slicing bacon; and he was industriously and realistically trying to take Bill's scalp, according to the sentence that had been pronounced upon him the evening before.

I got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again. But, from that moment, Bill's spirit was broken. He laid down on his side of the bed, but he never closed an eye again in sleep as long as that boy was with us. I dozed off for a while, but along toward sun-up I remembered that Red Chief had said I was to be burned at the stake at the rising of the sun. I wasn't nervous or afraid; but I sat up and lit my pipe and leaned against a rock.

"What you getting up so soon for, Sam?" asked Bill.

"Me?" says I. "Oh, I got a kind of a pain in my shoulder. I thought sitting up would rest it."

"You're a liar!" says Bill. "You're afraid. You was to be burned at sunrise, and you was afraid he'd do it. And he would, too, if he could find a match. Ain't it awful, Sam? Do you think anybody will pay out money to get a little imp like that back home?"

"Sure," said I. "A rowdy kid like that is just the kind that parents dote on. Now, you and the Chief get up and cook breakfast, while I go up on the top of this mountain and reconnoitre."

I went up on the peak of the little mountain and ran my eye over the contiguous vicinity. Over toward Summit I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the dastardly kidnappers. But what I saw was a peaceful landscape dotted with one man ploughing with a dun mule. Nobody was dragging the creek; no couriers dashed hither and yon, bringing tidings of no news to the distracted parents. There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view. "Perhaps," says I to myself, "it has not yet been discovered that the wolves have borne away the tender lambkin from the fold. Heaven help the wolves!" says I, and I went down the mountain to breakfast.

When I got to the cave I found Bill backed up against the side of it, breathing hard, and the boy threatening to smash him with a rock half as big as a cocoanut.

"He put a red-hot boiled potato down my back," explained Bill, "and then mashed it with his foot; and I boxed his ears. Have you got a gun about you, Sam?"

I took the rock away from the boy and kind of patched up the argument. "I'll fix you," says the kid to Bill. "No man ever yet struck the Red Chief but what he got paid for it. You better beware!"

After breakfast the kid takes a piece of leather with strings wrapped around it out of his pocket and goes outside the cave unwinding it.

"What's he up to now?" says Bill, anxiously. "You don't think he'll run away, do you, Sam?"

"No fear of it," says I. "He don't seem to be much of a home body. But we've got to fix up some plan about the ransom. There don't seem to be much excitement around Summit on account of his disappearance; but maybe they haven't realized yet that he's gone. His folks may think he's spending the night with Aunt Jane or one of the neighbours. Anyhow, he'll be missed to-day. To-night we must get a message to his father demanding the two thousand dollars for his return."

Just then we heard a kind of war-whoop, such as David might have emitted when he knocked out the champion Goliath. It was a sling that Red Chief had pulled out of his pocket, and he was whirling it around his head.

I dodged, and heard a heavy thud and a kind of a sigh from Bill, like a horse gives out when you take his saddle off. A niggerhead rock the size of an egg had caught Bill just behind his left ear. He loosened himself all over and fell in the fire across the frying pan of hot water for washing the dishes. I dragged him out and poured cold water on his head for half an hour.

By and by, Bill sits up and feels behind his ear and says: "Sam, do you know who my favourite Biblical character is?"

"Take it easy," says I. "You'll come to your senses presently."

"King Herod," says he. "You won't go away and leave me here alone, will you, Sam?"

I went out and caught that boy and shook him until his freckles rattled.

"If you don't behave," says I, "I'll take you straight home. Now, are you going to be good, or not?"

"I was only funning," says he sullenly. "I didn't mean to hurt Old Hank. But what did he hit me for? I'll behave, Snake-eye, if you won't send me home, and if you'll let me play the Black Scout to-day."

"I don't know the game," says I. "That's for you and Mr. Bill to decide. He's your playmate for the day. I'm going away for a while, on business. Now, you come in and make friends with him and say you are sorry for hurting him, or home you go, at once."

I made him and Bill shake hands, and then I took Bill aside and told him I was going to Poplar Cove, a little village three miles from the cave, and find out what I could about how the kidnapping had been regarded in Summit. Also, I thought it best to send a peremptory letter to old man Dorset that day, demanding the ransom and dictating how it should be paid.

"You know, Sam," says Bill, "I've stood by you without batting an eye in earthquakes, fire and flood--in poker games, dynamite outrages, police raids, train robberies and cyclones. I never lost my nerve yet till we kidnapped that two-legged skyrocket of a kid. He's got me going. You won't leave me long with him, will you, Sam?"

"I'll be back some time this afternoon," says I. "You must keep the boy amused and quiet till I return. And now we'll write the letter to old Dorset."

Bill and I got paper and pencil and worked on the letter while Red Chief, with a blanket wrapped around him, strutted up and down, guarding the mouth of the cave. Bill begged me tearfully to make the ransom fifteen hundred dollars instead of two thousand. "I ain't attempting," says he, "to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection, but we're dealing with humans, and it ain't human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat. I'm willing to take a chance at fifteen hundred dollars. You can charge the difference up to me."

So, to relieve Bill, I acceded, and we collaborated a letter that ran this way:

Ebenezer Dorset, Esq.:

We have your boy concealed in a place far from Summit. It is useless for you or the most skilful detectives to attempt to find him. Absolutely, the only terms on which you can have him restored to you are these: We demand fifteen hundred dollars in large bills for his return; the money to be left at midnight to-night at the same spot and in the same box as your reply--as hereinafter described. If you agree to these terms, send your answer in writing by a solitary messenger to-night at half-past eight o'clock. After crossing Owl Creek, on the road to Poplar Cove, there are three large trees about a hundred yards apart, close to the fence of the wheat field on the right-hand side. At the bottom of the fence-post, opposite the third tree, will be found a small pasteboard box.

The messenger will place the answer in this box and return immediately to Summit.

If you attempt any treachery or fail to comply with our demand as stated, you will never see your boy again.

If you pay the money as demanded, he will be returned to you safe and well within three hours. These terms are final, and if you do not accede to them no further communication will be attempted.

TWO DESPERATE MEN.

I addressed this letter to Dorset, and put it in my pocket. As I was about to start, the kid comes up to me and says:

"Aw, Snake-eye, you said I could play the Black Scout while you was gone."

"Play it, of course," says I. "Mr. Bill will play with you. What kind of a game is it?"

"I'm the Black Scout," says Red Chief, "and I have to ride to the stockade to warn the settlers that the Indians are coming. I 'm tired of playing Indian myself. I want to be the Black Scout."

"All right," says I. "It sounds harmless to me. I guess Mr. Bill will help you foil the pesky savages."

"What am I to do?" asks Bill, looking at the kid suspiciously.

"You are the hoss," says Black Scout. "Get down on your hands and knees. How can I ride to the stockade without a hoss?"

"You'd better keep him interested," said I, "till we get the scheme going. Loosen up."

Bill gets down on his all fours, and a look comes in his eye like a rabbit's when you catch it in a trap.

" How far is it to the stockade, kid? " he asks, in a husky manner of voice.

"Ninety miles," says the Black Scout. "And you have to hump yourself to get there on time. Whoa, now!"

The Black Scout jumps on Bill's back and digs his heels in his side.

"For Heaven's sake," says Bill, "hurry back, Sam, as soon as you can. I wish we hadn't made the ransom more than a thousand. Say, you quit kicking me or I '11 get up and warm you good."

I walked over to Poplar Cove and sat around the postoffice and store, talking with the chawbacons that came in to trade. One whiskerand says that he hears Summit is all upset on account of Elder Ebenezer Dorset's boy having been lost or stolen. That was all I wanted to know. I bought some smoking tobacco, referred casually to the price of black-eyed peas, posted my letter surreptitiously and came away. The postmaster said the mail-carrier would come by in an hour to take the mail on to Summit.

When I got back to the cave Bill and the boy were not to be found. I explored the vicinity of the cave, and risked a yodel or two, but there was no response.

So I lighted my pipe and sat down on a mossy bank to await developments.

In about half an hour I heard the bushes rustle, and Bill wabbled out into the little glade in front of the cave. Behind him was the kid, stepping softly like a scout, with a broad grin on his face. Bill stopped, took off his hat and wiped his face with a red handkerchief. The kid stopped about eight feet behind him.

"Sam," says Bill, "I suppose you'll think I'm a renegade, but I couldn't help it. I'm a grown person with masculine proclivities and habits of self-defence, but there is a time when all systems of egotism and predominance fail. The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All is off. There was martyrs in old times," goes on Bill, "that suffered death rather than give up the particular graft they enjoyed. None of 'em ever was subjugated to such supernatural tortures as I have been. I tried to be faithful to our articles of depredation; but there came a limit."

"What's the trouble, Bill?" I asks him.

"I was rode," says Bill, "the ninety miles to the stockade, not barring an inch. Then, when the settlers was rescued, I was given oats. Sand ain't a palatable substitute. And then, for an hour I had to try to explain to him why there was nothin' in holes, how a road can run both ways and what makes the grass green. I tell you, Sam, a human can only stand so much. I takes him by the neck of his clothes and drags him down the mountain. On the way he kicks my legs black-and-blue from the knees down; and I've got two or three bites on my thumb and hand cauterized.

"But he's gone"--continues Bill--"gone home. I showed him the road to Summit and kicked him about eight feet nearer there at one kick. I'm sorry we lose the ransom; but it was either that or Bill Driscoll to the madhouse."

Bill is puffing and blowing, but there is a look of ineffable peace and growing content on his rose-pink features.

"Bill," says I, "there isn't any heart disease in your family, is there?"

"No," says Bill, "nothing chronic except malaria and accidents. Why?"

"Then you might turn around," says I, "and have a look behind you."

Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down plump on the ground and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my scheme was to put the whole job through immediately and that we would get the ransom and be off with it by midnight if old Dorset fell in with our proposition. So Bill braced up enough to give the kid a weak sort of a smile and a promise to play the Russian in a Japanese war with him as soon as he felt a little better.

I had a scheme for collecting that ransom without danger of being caught by counterplots that ought to commend itself to professional kidnappers. The tree under which the answer was to be left--and the money later on--was close to the road fence with big, bare fields on all sides. If a gang of constables should be watching for any one to come for the note they could see him a long way off crossing the fields or in the road. But no, sirree! At half-past eight I was up in that tree as well hidden as a tree toad, waiting for the messenger to arrive.

Exactly on time, a half-grown boy rides up the road on a bicycle, locates the pasteboard box at the foot of the fencepost, slips a folded piece of paper into it and pedals away again back toward Summit.

I waited an hour and then concluded the thing was square. I slid down the tree, got the note, slipped along the fence till I struck the woods, and was back at the cave in another half an hour. I opened the note, got near the lantern and read it to Bill. It was written with a pen in a crabbed hand, and the sum and substance of it was this:

Two Desperate Men.

Gentlemen: I received your letter to-day by post, in regard to the ransom you ask for the return of my son. I think you are a little high in your demands, and I hereby make you a counter-proposition, which I am inclined to believe you will accept. You bring Johnny home and pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and I agree to take him off your hands. You had better come at night, for the neighbours believe he is lost, and I couldn't be responsible for what they would do to anybody they saw bringing him back.

Very respectfully, EBENEZER DORSET.

"Great pirates of Penzance!" says I; "of all the impudent--"

But I glanced at Bill, and hesitated. He had the most appealing look in his eyes I ever saw on the face of a dumb or a talking brute.

"Sam," says he, "what's two hundred and fifty dollars, after all? We've got the money. One more night of this kid will send me to a bed in Bedlam. Besides being a thorough gentleman, I think Mr. Dorset is a spendthrift for making us such a liberal offer. You ain't going to let the chance go, are you?"

"Tell you the truth, Bill," says I, "this little he ewe lamb has somewhat got on my nerves too. We'll take him home, pay the ransom and make our get-away."

We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that his father had bought a silver-mounted rifle and a pair of moccasins for him, and we were going to hunt bears the next day.

It was just twelve o'clock when we knocked at Ebenezer's front door. Just at the moment when I should have been abstracting the fifteen hundred dollars from the box under the tree, according to the original proposition, Bill was counting out two hundred and fifty dollars into Dorset's hand.

When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home he started up a howl like a calliope and fastened himself as tight as a leech to Bill's leg. His father peeled him away gradually, like a porous plaster.

"How long can you hold him?" asks Bill.

"I'm not as strong as I used to be," says old Dorset, "but I think I can promise you ten minutes."

"Enough," says Bill. "In ten minutes I shall cross the Central, Southern and Middle Western States, and be legging it trippingly for the Canadian border."

And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Bill was, and as good a runner as I am, he was a good mile and a half out of summit before I could catch up with him.

By O. Henry