The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 27, 1895, Page 13

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, OéTOBE‘R 27, 1895. oy (N of: \ B3 S RS % it is holy ground. gun here—here in the house? But, as indicated at the opening, we of | Europe and the States are still savages, | not knowing or caring a tithe as much | about perfumes as an Arab of the desert, and we must still packa gun. At least | this was the case with my companion, with whom I pushed far into the Sierras last week to swear allegiance on nature’s altar for the forty-first season there and fill my body and my soul with the per: fumes of California. He had a gun. Like all men who thick they know enything about a gun he also had a tongue. Mv one demand and desire of the landlord was that we should have a great blazing fire of old pine logs heaped on the hearth. porch of God's‘ with his gunand histongue! We sat by the great fire of blazing perfumesand he spake: a dead center shot, but if 1 ever get bead on a bear he is my rule, madam.” She was a pretty widow from the States and reputed to be very rich. It is said that an Arab can dine content- edly on a dried fig and a perfumed piece of silk, with a bit of sandalwood by way | of dessert, and that he can even get along without the fiz. I have read that the | author of the Koran subsisted mainly on | perfumes while compiling his great book of camels’ bones in his cave. We barbarians of ope have developed no such taste for our own verfumes as yet, if any at all. | But centuries hence, or even a few years, | may bring us out here around to where the fire-fed Bedouin was in the days of the | srophet at Medina and Mecca. Why? Be- cause this burning sun of uninterrupted | ull hal rived late that night at the tayvern, on the headwaters of the Sacramento River, inthe heart of the Sierras; and as the nights are always cool there, this great pine-log fire, as per contract, blazed and crackled in the big fireplace and cast a ruddy, tender light all about the high-built walls, where hung horns, fishing-tackle, dog-collars, bear ski bootjacks and all the dozen different things that take the place of pic- tures in the parlors of city hotels. Colonel 8.—we old veterans of the day of gold are all colonels now—is a famous story-teller. He is a bachelor and claim to be a close relative of a great Englis Duke; although it was noticed that when = T 5 5 gether as close relatives naturally would. as the Turkish Orient is odorous. | %%01d " family Ay = 1 differences,” you must travel all the way | colonel with bia to California to find a land of | geep sigh; for he isa sensitive man and, t perfumes. The bogs and the fogs | too, a man of characterand courage. For Mountains, are fatal to | had e perfumes. Even the | 0ld give generously of their most sacred sweets in these humid lands. itness the fact that only the roses of | the duel did not come off. yield | This Colonel Phineas E. avor in | keeper of the tavern, and had two big, under_the | jolly boys who kept heaping on logs and Santa Bar- | laughing in their slecves quietly as they insisted that the bullets should be larger and the distance only five paces. the “‘attar of roses.’ t! This is the beginning—only a | duel. of perfumes to be. have fought with him!” y work to-day is with the inspir- ing odors of the Sierras. The season says the French general in the “Lady of Lyons.” | And how the roads of the two old colonels rounds and the season ripens as 2 great red | of California had divided, to besure! True, apple ripens with all its perfect perfume | they had not quite fought in tie ara hue to drop into the lap of mother | old days; but they lov earth. This is the season to go forth into | quite as well as if they had, and the com- | the Sierr: At other ns you may see | ing of the great lawyer with all his guns | ras. the S but at this son you may | and pistols and paraphernalia of the chase also literally breathe them; feed upon |wasan event to be enjoyed. Each old | them, as the Persian on his perfumedsilks. | “‘col’” dug up stories by the score. All Go and kindleacampfire! ~Call it *‘going |'the bear stories that the big lawyer had i b a-fishing,” if you like, Ana go without a gun, please; go | v shing, but go | e, or net. My word | ) a great deal | gun and rod were made his own, and the honest old and benefit al in the Sierras not claimed by his friend. Now don’t set us Californians all down 3 as liars. Our stories are all true, as a rale, you g only they don’t all belong to the man who ow here is a beautiful delusion. Do | happensto claim to be the hero of them. you know a good many people go into the | Still, there are Californians ana Califor- more W (lorniae_ : | ster’s own body. the mighty altar to the dying season. Let | all kinds of cats, wild or tame. Tame cats us pause here—take off our shoes here, for | would eat corpses—what would not a wild- Ah, would you carry a | cat do? Rat her death by robbers, rattle- snakes, anything on earth, than by the | teeth and claws of a wildeat! He watched that terrible tail rise in the air and switch and snap and swell and ex- pand till it was even larger than the mon- And then he fired, took it between the eyes and gallo]ped on; while its falling body" struck the leader of the ursuing robbers and so terrified the band y its cries and claws and teeth and ex- panding tail that they gave up the pursuit and he came right on to Egypt to rest and restore his shattered nerves. | Now this story is all right enough, ex- But let us see what my companion did | *No, madam, I don’t say that I am always | meat asarule, asa | & 1t was late at night. The stage had ar- | his Grace, the said Duke, was with us out | ar makes California | here, the two were not seen to mingle to- | the | 4 wave of his hand and a | d all the United States|example, when he and Colonel Phineas | uarreled over a mining claim in the | ays, and a duel was arranged, with | | ounce-ball rifles at ten paces, the colonel | And so | was now the | ds her perfumes to the ladies of | listened to the tales of their father and his | eting in bales of rose leaves. | former deadly enemy in the contemplated | “How we do love a man after we | old | Leard in the barrooms of “San Francisco | cept that there is no more timber on the | top of the Rocky Mountains than there is | on the banks of the Nile. There are no | rocks there, as a rule, no narrow passes, but all as broad as a pasture. Another | slight objection to the story is, a wildcat | has no tail, no more tail than an elk ora | bear, or a rubber hoot. Alas! such men have given California a ad reputation for carelessness asto the | cold, frozen truth when telling their tales | of Hairlength escapes; but, as before ob- served, there are Californians and Califor- nians. And now to get along with Colonel S. and his bear. But, mind iou, there is | nothing very much to say about him, no great adyenture to tell, He was certainly no such story-teller as that Californian up the Nile, for, as said before, his tales were all true and simple—certainly not blood- | curdling and contrary to nature at all, as was that Nile story.” But you try sitting by a roaring bright fire in the high Sierras onacoldnightafter a hard day on thestage | coach, an old friend, two giggling big boys | to heap on the logs, a pretty rosy young | widow to listen and to laugh—well, if you don’t take up some dead man’s story and make yourself the hero of it I shall won- | der. “‘Remember when we used to go out Sundays to the oot of the highest peak in the Sierras and shoot bear, just to see ’em roll down hill to us?” says Colonel E. | “‘Yes, yes—had to have telescope guns; | great fun to catch a black bear between yoa and the white snow as he takes a walk around the tip of a peak.”’ “That’s s0, colonel; but youand I aren’t as young as we used to was, so I've kept a place for you; boys know where it is— right down theriver there in my own close; great big mossy log where bear came to catch fish. You first goouton the farthest end of that log, light a cigar, lie down, with your head on a little cross Jog there is there—done it a dozen times myself—and if we don’t have bear steak for supper to- morrow night I miss my guess, powerful.” “‘Sure, pap,” gig-led the boys, after dig- ging their elbows into each other's back by the wood heap, near the door, and they shyly came forward and volunteered to show the way, do enything, eveu to clean- ing and loading and setting the sights of d one another now | the great bear gun for close ranee. Boys know all about bears in the Sier- Not a boy there but knows about forty times as much about them as we do, but they won’t tell it; the only giggle | and nudge one another with their elbows when you want to talk bear with them. I met two boys up there last summer lead- ing an old she bear and her two cubsto a tavern-keeper approvriated to his own use | place where other bear would cotne to catch most everything of the sort | fish. These tame bears are used as decoys, | as tame elephants are used ir: Africa. But | these bovs only giggled when I talked about danger, and dug their bare big toes in | the dust of the trail, while theold she | bear nosed my pockets for nuts,. and the i baby bears lay down and locked arms and THE COLONEL AND THE BEAR, California Sierras at this season of the year for the sole purpose of breathing, feeding upon the health-giving and nour- ishing perfumes of California without knowing it? It is a fact, hignly compli- nians, and it is to be conceded that some of us do lie—a little. For instance, I tray- eled with a Californian on my second trip | up the Nile who repeatedly toid a story to | some English officers, when' the nights mentary to both the excursionist and the | were too hot to sleep, that I did not, quite country. The man may havea gunanda | believe. Briefly, it was to this effect: rod along; in fact, he would not have gone | He was crossing the summiit- of ' the without them, and he really believes he is | Rocky Mountains on a mule; with a load out for fish and game, But in truth he is | of gold dust, when he suddenly found that out for the high and holy perfumes of | he was being pursued up thc narrow and California that burn on God's altar there | densely wooded defile by a band of rob- rpetually as the warm rich year rounds | bers. ‘He drew his Winchester and pre- 1 ripens to its close. pared to shoot them down one at a time as he predominating, aye, the periect per- | they came, for tbe pass was so narrow and fume uli (';flifomia tl’;zereyat this season of | so rocky that they could approach only in 1 ving is that of browned, burned, | single file. But glancing ahead as he did baked and roasted pine; pine quills, knee- | 50, to see that the dense woods and the tall, broad cedars concealed no one in am. bush, he saw a ferocious wiideat erouching on an overhanging cedar bough above his path and only a few yards in advance of bim. The cat was surely about to spring at his throat, for its tail began to swell and swing and expand in the air like the tail of a tomcat on the housetop when engaged in a battle with bootjacks. He hated cats, deep in places, and as rich in coior as the old russet gold that once lay in the aban- doned gulches, where they now gather and gather, year after year, as if laid by some unseen hand on the altar of God’s house; and then the browned and crisp fallen pine wood, fir wood, cedar wood—all sorts of the pine family — piling their boughs or their bodies on the peaks and billiops to make perfect the perfumes on rolled in the leaves by the trail like two kittens on a carpet. . The colonel was on the back porch bath- ing his head next morning as the two boys, | brizht and early, came out in a very eager Wwayto bring him in to breakfast, and in- form bim that all was ready, and that he must be out in ambush at once or miss the chance of his life to get a fat bear. The colonel had some soapsuds in his eyes, but he surely saw a bear and cubs in a cage behind some brush back of the yard as the boys hurried him inside, and he began 1o say as much to the widow when he sat down to breakfast. But as the boys Fggled 80 incessantly and as Colonel hineas E. sat go stiff and looked so serious he concluded that men are apt to see a little too much after such a jolly day and night as we had just had, and so sud- denly turned from bear to tariff. t was a pleasant place where_the boys located the expectant hunter. His heart was full of hope—hope and tbat pretty widow. A great, broad, mouf redwood of other centuries, with nearly all the waters of the swift, sweet Sacramento tumbling, Toaring, rushing over the huge, mossy bowlders beneath. An elephant might walk that log and not break it nor shake it nor make the least bit of noise, so broad and strong was the log and so deep and soft and s iiken the green-brown mosses. Maple boughs, broad and strong and long, re aches as in_ benediction from above; pine trees, redwood, fir, tamarack and cedar shot their shapely cones in glori- ous rivalry toward the purrl_e heavens, and Mount Shasta, white as faith, looked lovingly down in the colonel’s rosy face as he leaned his bead in a reposeful, half sitting posture against the soft moss of the little cross log. His great bear gun was laid all cocked and ready at his right side by the obliging boys, a cigar was in his teeth. “But will not the approaching bears smell the smoke and be apprehensive of my presence ?’ Tl?e colonel felt that heshould be a little stiff with these queer, giggling, sniggering boys, they were just a little bit too un- saited, and so he assumed the tone and language of his law office. § “Bears be dogoned! bears like tobacco. You know a lot about bears, you do!”’ “Why, some bears chew,” added the other boy, as he nudged his brother at his elbow, walking back down the great log to the leafy bank. “Yes, some bears chew and smoke, too!” cried the other over his shoulder as the two_disappeared in the brush up toward the house. 5 Y “Glad I never married—don’t like boys, nohow—girls better. And if I ever should marry—if the widow—if it could be so ar- ranged in case I should marry her—and she—girls—yes—girls—all girls,” The half-finished cigar settled down from the nalf-opened lips, slid down, down, rolled to the log, down—siz! siz! and the colonel dreamed of the widow and ofgirls, all girls; not a single boy in all his happy family. The day was hot. The day before had been a hot one, and a hard one; the night all too brief and bright for an old bachelor to recoup his wasted energy, and the great hunter from San Francisco slept on; slept and dreamed, dreamed and slept. Suddenly he saw—no, he felt—felt a bear even as he slept, and sprang bolt upright, gun in hand. And not a second too soon. A huge black bear was on the log not ten steps away, and coming right along. Her nose was down to the log. She was smell- ing along with all the composure and ugly assume of an engine, #nd he lying, or sit- ting, there right in the monster’s track. He jerked the gun tp his shoulder and, bang! No, not bang, only snap! and then snap! And then the bear, smelling in the other end of the gun as the colonel rolled off, taking, be it told to his credit, the gun with him, and wading hastily to the near- est bank. He got around to the back porch, and as he sat there wringing out his socks he saw the two boys, bent nearly double with laughter, leading their old pet bear back to her cubs in the cage. And that was all. My companion got no bear and he got no retty widow, although what he might Euve done without a gun as I had advised was plain to see before he went out **loaded for bear.” Pardon all this interlude. But I repeat, the place of these perfumed altars is ““holy ground,” and we must take off our shoes and be silent there. It isan impertinence next to profanity to attempt to break this golden silence with words, words, words. Think what may be housed in the coming centuries for California when we shall learn to care for our thou- sand precious perfumes as the Persians and Arabs care for theirs! JoaQuiN MILLER. OUR WINES ON THE LIST, BIG EASTERN RESTAURANTS TO MAKE A SPECIALTY OF CALI- FORNIA BRANDS, HerRMAN BENDEL's GREAT PLANS FOR MARKETING Two CALIFOR- NIa PrRODUCTS. Herman Bendel, president of the Wine- makers' Corporation and the San Jose Fruit-Packing Company, bas returned from a five weeks’ tour of the East, with information and ideas of very great im- portance to the wine and dried-fruit inter- ests of the State. “‘One-third of our wine product is con- sumed by 2,000,000 here, but it has been up-hill work to make the other 70,000,000 consume the two-thirds,”” said Mr. Bendel yesterday. ‘‘You see something is wrong. Here small dealers come in contact with the people. Inthe East the wine is bought in bulk by large wholesale liquor dealers, anxious to sell as quickly as possible at the most profit. There is no chance for one to sample varieties and the best qual- ities. I found that people there know very little about California wines. “I tolds them that we wanted to intro- duce our better wines, and that we could supply as good wines as the imported at less money. 1 have here a wine list from the Auditorium Hotel, Chicago. It shows twenty-six kindsof imported champagne, and of other imported wines five kinds of sherry, thirty-four kinds of claret, four- teen kinds of sauterne, nine of red bur- gundy, ninecteen of Rhine wine, and so on. The onlv native wine listed as such is one kina of zinfandel bottled in Chicago, and it 1s 50 cents a pint. On this list are 135 kinds of imported wine and one of native wine. That zinfandel could be laid down in Chicago at about 25 cents a gallon, and a gallon makes ten small bottles. “I found that people liked the idea I am trying to carry out. They think it will draw trade to a certain extent—that of people curious about California wines and of Califorrians—and then it will be a nov- elty. “I want a dozen or twenty of our best brands sent to them and the Wine Asso- ciation. Captain Niebaum and two or three others that I have had time to see since getting back have approved the plan and aereed to ship casesof goods on my recommendation. This plan is better than opening cafes, because the men have es- tablished trade, and there is no risk and no storage. Everybody who makes a good creditable wine will have a chance, but the wines sent in must be good. What I have done is only a start. Iexpect that ship- ments to these establishments will be made in two or three weeks. In the East an ordinarily good table wine costs 75 cents a pint on the table. California wine of the same quality cculd be sold there at 25 cents a pint, at a profit of 100 per cent or more. The thing needed is to make the East acquainted with our wines.” Of no_less interest in the State 1s the plan in Mr. Bendel’s mind for raising the dried-fruit business out of the mire it is now in. A new method of marketing the dried fruit produvet of the State and put- ting this interest on a business basis was the leading purpose of his Eastern trip. “There has never been qng method or organization among the dried-fruit men and the business could not bein worse condition,” said Mr. Bendel yesterday. “The pro&ucers all consign their fruit at once to commission merchants in Chicago and New York or sell it in advance to agents from there, consequentiy thp entire product is yearly dumped into justtwo markets where there is a glut. “The plan I wish to get the dried-fruit producers to carry out is this: Let safe storage warehouses be provided in every fruit district, and let the fruit be properly graded in them and held. Producers can then get needed advances on their ware- house receipts without selling at the wrong time at ruinous prices. “‘Now the dried fruit men are not getting the cost of their product. Peaches that last year were run down to 6 and 8 cents are now away down to 3 and 5)¢ cents. Prunes are ruinously low where they ought to be higher than last year. There must be organization among the dried-fruit men, and financial assistance from mer- chants and bankers so that they will not be compelled to sell at ruinous prices.” 13 LL The golden and russet leaves of maple and beech tree lay thick on the bosom of Lake La Hache, as Donald Benton looked up the Cariboo road in the gathering twi- light for the stage, which should pass about that hour on its way to Barkers- ville. A few hundred yards from the road spread the grand lake, the most magnifi- cent sheet of water in British Columbia. Close to its shore stood the Hudson Bay Company’s fort, where thirty of Benton’s years had peen passed, purchasing furs from the trappers for that historic corpora- tion, which exercised an almost mon- archial power over the Northwest. Like many of his class who had been appointed to those posts in early times, Benton had married a half-breed Indian woman, who, however, had received some education in Victoria and who was a gentle and loving wife to him. She vossessed all the physical beauty of the women of the British Columbia tribes, and when she died, leaving him but one child, a daughier, Jessie, Benton's grief representatives, indeed, of all occupations. To the rude life they had chosen in the eager quest of gold, they carried the civ- ilized habits of the refined past, and as an observing traveler in that region once said in proof of that assertion, and putting forth his statement as an irrefutable argu- ment, “You couldn’t find a man of the Northwest without a toothbrush.” From the letters handed him by his guest Benton learned that Morton wasa young Englishman of means, though not exactly wealthy, traveling for his health through the Northwest, and that he was an intimate friend of some of the heads of the big company at home. The trader liked the unaffected ways of Morton, and it was late before they retired that night, S0 eager was the long-exiled Scotchman to hear about old names and old places. The next morning Jessie presided over the breakfast table, and Morton was con- firmed in the conclusion arrived at the night before—that she was a very pretty, | nav. more than pretty, a very beautiful girl. * You must try the lake to-day,” said | Benton. It is a cloudy morning, there is | plenty of breeze on the water. and your first experiment is sure to be a good one.”” “I shall with pleasure,” rejoined Mor- in the very middle of the trader’s most interesting yarns. It was now two days before Morton’s de- parture. He told his host that the last mail he had received from Victoria made his presence there imperative before the end of the month. Benton was honestly sorry to lose the young man, but he was consoled by the reflection that he would have Ferguson for the next six weeks at the least, and as long aiterward as he could prevail on him to stay. **What will Jessie do without her com- panion?” he said. “I tell you, the girl will be awfully lonesome when you go away, Frank.” ““Oh, Mr. Ferguson will easily fill my place,” remarked Morton, with an awk- ward laugh. “True,” replied the trader, “but then Jessie will see enouch of Ferguson during the rest of her life.” This shaft rankled in Morton's breast. She was engaged, then, this woodland fairy, this child of nature, to that coarse, unsympathetic fellow, who had not an idea beyond a fox or beaver skin, and how to make a sharp trade with a trapper. It was intolerable, exasperating, maddening. But what could he do, He could not marry her himself. That was out of the question. He was like the dog in the manger—the morsel he refused to take he begrudged to another. Why shoula she not became the wife of this pros- perous lout, give up canoeing, fishing and deer-stalking, and settle down to a quiet, humdrum life in Victoria. Only for one reason, and that he confessed to himself, with a feeling akin almost to terror, was— that he loved her. There was no denying the fact. He, Frank Morton, an English gentleman of high rank in his native shire, was hopelessly in love with the daughter of a half-Indian mother. The merry shout of Jessie calling him to the wharf aroused him from bis bitter re- flections. He resolved to put away those mou%hts and enjoy the few hours that were left. But she remarked that he was depressed and rallied him on his gloomy looks. “That is because I have to go away, Jessie,”” he said, “Going away!”’ she paused with the paddle uplifted, and Morton saw, with a wild thrill of joy, the sorrow and agitation on her beautiful face. She stood like a Niobe, grief stricken. A woman of the world would' have at least made some JESSIE HER OWN SELF WAS TO ROW. was 80 sincere that he never took another woman to fill her place. The daughter was still more beautiful than the mother, and now in her nineteenth year, would have made a sensation as a brunette beauty m any drawing-room in the world. Brought up on the shores of the great lake, she could paddle a canoe with as much skill as any of the Indians who lived there, she was an unerring shot, and her spear cast by torchlight at the lurking trout never missed its mark. She was the chatelaine of the big log fort, wrote her fatner's reports to the office in Victoria, sent orders for what goods thev required, and made out the invoices of the furs they shipped. She was in every respect the sole daughter of Benton’s home and heart. “I wonder what can be keeping that stage,” muttered Benton to himself. “It's about time I heard from Jack Ferguson to say when he’s coming up for his regular week’s outing. This is getting to be a mighty lonely life, lonely for myself and lonely for the girl. I've had most enough of jt. 1 think I'll clean up and get back to civilization for her sake as well as my own. I wonder, though, if she could live in those biz stifling cities after the free air of the mountains. But this is no life.” His musinfs were interrupted by the vision of a cloud of dust from which the big lumbering mud-wagon, by courtesy called astage, and drawn by six hali- broken horses, came dashing al%ng. “‘Helloa, captain!” shouted Tom, the stage-driver,as he skillfully halted histeam by Benton’s side. “I’ve got some stuff for you and likewise a passenger.” “‘Good,” said Benton, with a glad smile of hospitable anticipation. *‘I'm glad Fer- guson has come.”’ ‘“'Tis not Ferguson,” replied the driver; ‘“’tis a different sort of man altogether.” And then leaning from his seat he cried to the inside: ‘‘Here we are, sir. This is the fort and here is Captain Benton himself.” The figure that stepped from the stage was that of a tall, slim, delicate-looking ¥‘oung man, quite unlike the burly freckled erguson whom Benton had expected to see. And to increase the trader’s astonish- ment he was followed by a servant, who assisted the driver in getting some heavy Laggage from the stage, while the stranger advanced to greet Benton. ““My name is Morton,” he said, politely, “Frank Morton; and I haye brought you some letters of introduction from your people in Victoria. I have been in rather delicate health for toe last year, and my friends suggested that I should pass a month here if you would kindly receive me as your guest.” “‘Only too glad to see you, Mr. Morton,” exclaimed the trader cordially, extending his hand. “But you'll have to rough it, you know. Ha! I see you are a sports- man,” he added, as the man set down by the baggage a gun and rifle case and a package of fishing rods. *You've come to the right country for sport, Mr. Morton; ou can have everything in these woods rom a chipmunk to an elk, and we can give you such stream and lake fishing as I’'ll warrant you few quarters of the globe can furnish.” “I'm_ afraid, in my present condition of health,”” said Morton, smiling, ‘“‘the elk may roam unmolested. I’m in much bet- ter form now for small trout and chip- munk than larger game."” *‘We'll tone you up,”’ rejoined the trader, cheerily, with a friendly pat on the back, for he gmd already taken a fancy at first sight to his'unexpected guest. *'Great heavens! what a beautiful girl; a perfect forest lily !’ was Morton’s inwar: ejaculation when his host presented him 0 Jessie. 5 Accustomed from her childhood to the society of mem of all classes, Jessie felt no embarrassment in meeting this handsome, interesting looking young stranger. The men that had flocked to the mines at Cariboo and worked along the bed of the Frazer River were, for the most part, men of education and refine- ment—ex-army officers, barristers, doctors, ton. “I suppose I can get an Indian to row me. My man is a poor sailor.” “Not a bit of it,” cried the trader. | ‘Jessle her ain self shall row you. Why, | | man, there’s not an Indian in the country | | that my gal cannot give points to on | | fishing.” The strange unconventionality of being rowed for miles along with a beautiful girl rather startled Morton. “But I suppose it is the custom of the place,” he thought. “Surely her father knows best.”” The trader was not impelled by parental partiality when he credited his daughter with surpassing skill with paddle and rod. “Diana in all her glory was not a patch upon her,” said Morton mentally, as he watched the lithe graceful form of the girl standing in artistic pose, and at each stroke of the paddle sending the light craft fily- ing over the water. She put the rod to- gether for him, and arranged the tackle, all the while prattling about the sport of the | region and showing a profound knowledge | of the habite of the wild animals ana how to hunt them. He told her of the great world she had never seen, what the men and women did there to amuse themselves, and her fawn- like ecyes filled with tears when he de- | scribed the struggles and miseries of the | poor. “Why don’t they come out here?” she | said wonderingly. ‘‘Anyone who can shoot and fish need not suffer for food in the Northwest.” Morton had a keen relish for trout and venison steaks that night when they re- turned to the hospitable fort. He con- fessed that it had been one of the most en- i'oyable days of his life. He had caught ote of fish, and had been inexpressibly en- tertained by his naive companion. ‘fessie showed the most unfeigned inter- est in this cultured and gemFe stranger. She had not a particle of maidenly timid- ity. She talked as unaffectedly to him as to her father, and reposed the most un- bounded confidence in him. ‘The nature of the girl was so frank and refreshing that Morton began to feel a sincere affec- tion for her. Not 1n a lover sense, but the sort of regard he would entertain for a pretty and amusing child. In this pleasant life of lake and wood- land a couple of weeks slipped aweay, and Morton began to think of returning to Fort Yale. One evening when he and Jessie shot alongside the little wharf Ben- ton, with a stout, florid man beside him, was awaiting them. “This,” said the trader,l;yresenting Mor- ton, “is my friend, Mr. Ferguson.” The gentlemen shook hands, but Morton was | rather surprised to see, and somewhat chagrined, too, the big man throw his arms around Jessie and imprint a soundin kiss upon her red lips. Jessie receive. the caress with seeming indifference, and with the unsentimental remark: “I'm glad he got four brace of grouse to-day since you have come, Mr. Fergu- son. From the moment of that embrace Morton conceived a hearty dislike to the new arrival. He felt as if he, Frank Mor- ton, belonged to the place and this fellow was an intruder, and the soouner he took himself away the better it would be for Jessie and himself. He also perceived with alarm that the idea of his own de- parture and bidding fareweil to the trader’s danghter fiuve him infinite pain. He inwardly scoffed at the assumption of his being in Jove. Yet the reflection that their association must soon terminate actually made him heartsick, Bentou hailed Ferguson’s arrival with delight. Jessie had monopolized all Mor- ton’s time, and the trader, except at night, was as destitute of general companionshi as before. But the canoe would only hnxg two, and Morton, as the invalid, hadj the choice. So Benton sipped rum and smoked cigars_all day and reveled in an Eden of reminiscences with his old friend Fergu- | along in silence. son. The latter did not seem to enjoy those tete-a-tetes very keenly, and Morton noticed with jealouseyes that his glance was often admiringly lixed on Jessie, even effort to conceal her agitation, but all Jes- sie’s sonl was refiected in her eyes. ‘‘Yes, Jessie, I have to return soon to my own country, far across the sea,’”” Mor- ton continued softiy. “In the words of the song you have so often sung to me, Jessie, "Tis hame I'll be, For I am goin’ home to my ain countrie, And I may never again catch the trout with you or stalk the deer in those forests. And will vou be sorry, Jessie dear?” The girl looked at him for amoment, her eyes filled with unshed tears, and then turning to the prow of the canoe paddled When he dgain saw her face 1t was without a trace of emotion. “Ican hardly realize yet that you are going, Frank,” she said gently; ‘but I snppose it must be. Puton that big red spoon. It will be good to-day.” Morton fished mechanically and Jessie paddled along, straight down the lake | until they gained the point at which they were accustomed to turn and work back, reaching the wharf half an hour or so be- fore dinner time. But now she kept on, and Morton, filled with melancholy and doubt, agitated with conflicting emotions and resolutions, made no sug- gestions to her. They had not spoken a dozen words during_the latter part of thes excursion. He made na further reference to his departure, and she “avoided the sub- ject. Both felt too awkwardly constrained to talk with the freedom of other fishing days. But they were quickly aroused from this apathy, for the sky suddenly grew darks with ominous clouds and the wind in- creased at a most alarming rate. ‘“Jessie, it looks as if we were going to. have a big blow,” said Morton hurriedly, breaking the long silence. 1 The girl looked up from the water an Morton remarked at once the alarm upon, her face. “‘We are,”” she said in a subdued voice. “‘Quick, Frank, take the other paddle, I we do not make the shore in the next te minutes we are lost,”” and with a defi stroke she turned the prow of the toward the nearest shore. In a moment the storm was upon them. The lake rose in billows like an_angry sej canoe| and lashed them with spray. The water: dashed over the gunwales of the canoe an. threatened to fill her. Fortunately they! had 2 minnow c#n on board. | “Take in your paddle and bail, Frank,” shouted the intrepid girl. I can keep her! before the wind. ~Keep steady and bail.” Morton obeyed her, exulting in the boltfl spirit that knew none of the timidity o her sex in their hour of peril. On and on- ward the canoe swept, the supple figure ofl Jessie, like a goddess ‘‘born to rule the! storm”; her dress, soaked with rain, cling-| ing to her exquisite form and showing alli its graceful curves, crouched in the stern and meeting every lateral swing of the craft with her paddle. They were not fifty yards from the shore when, with a thrill of horror, Morton heard a crunching sound. The cance had struck an old log and was ripped wide open, and in a moment he was fighting the waves, which scourged him like whips. He struck out to look for his companion when a crushing blow on the head de- prived him of consciousness and he knew no more, SRR T e S S A sense of comfort and warmth, a feels ing as if awakening from a long sleep, and Frank Morton opened his eyes and looked up. His head lay pillowed in Jessie’s lap and her eyes were lookingdown into his. “Thank God, you are safc, dear,” she said quietly. ‘“‘Hush, don’t talk now, and T'll tell youall about it. After you were flung out the wave pitched you against that unlucky stump, and I was just in time to catch you as you were sinking. I held on to the canoe with one hand, and kept your head above water with the other— you know I am strong and a good swime mer—and we were blown ashore, fortu- nately, too, just at the point where there were embers of a hunter’s fire, so I was able to make a blaze to keep us warm, The rain has ceased, but we must be cone tent to remain all night in the forest. *Jessie,”” said Morton, fervently, taking