Desperado Dick must have altered a few, he must, if he ran into a trap that way, as a prairie turkey walks into a log-pen baited with corncobs.'

'Tain't like him! not one scrap!' sententiously observed the taller of Mr Bunce's satellites, a gaunt, sinewy man of middle age, with a face tanned by the sun. This latter, who was now introduced to me by the name, or rather sobriquet, of Western Jem, had been successively hunter, trapper, guide, gold-digger, and policeman. His practical acquaintance with backwoods life, and the shifts and stratagems of the wilderness, made him valuable to his official superiors, while his strength and courage, tested in many an encounter with bears and Indians, earned him the respect of his better-educated comrades. The other policeman was a New-Englander, slight made, pale, and intelligent. His name was Hucks; and he afterwards told me, somewhat vaingloriously, that he was a graduate of Harvard College, and had been a newspaper reporter, an 'assistant physician,' a sub-collector of customs, and the contributor of many poetical effusions to the Boston Illuminator, before destiny impelled him to accept a constable's truncheon, or, as he worded it, a marshalship, in the Chicago police.

It was, at all events, necessary that we should forthwith set off for Detroit, to make sure of the identity of the arrested person with our absconding cashier; but, as there was yet a little time before the early train should start, I hurried off to have a brief interview with Julia at the hospitable mansion of the friends to whose care I had, on the previous night, so summarily consigned her. Summoned by a young negress whom I had found in the act of polishing, with an air of great importance, the brass fittings of her master's mahogany street-door, and whose white teeth glistened with good-natured wonder at my matutinal errand, the dear girl came promptly down to speak to me. Her pale, pretty face and tear-stained eyes told that she, too, had passed the night with but little sleep. She eagerly assured me, however, that it was not her own solitary position-among strangers in a strange country-that had broken her slumbers. The Grays-few names were more respected in Chicago than that of Enoch Gray-were, she declared, the kindest and best of hosts, and their welcome of her had been so simply frank and genial that she felt herself instantly at home with them. But the shock of the discovery of the imposture, the annoyance and probable loss that I had sustained, with the uncertainty as to the fate of her dearly loved brother, had combined to banish sleep, and she was anxious and uneasy.

Do you think, John, dear,' she said, in a low voice and hesitatingly, as if dreading the answer, that he has done any-serious harm-to poor Robert?'

I answered, as confidently as I could, in the negative, fortifying my opinion by the more competent judgment of Superintendent Bunce, and even ventured to aver that, the traitor once in safe custody, there would be little difficulty in extracting from him such information as would enable us to trace out young Carthew, wherever he might be. As the train sped on, however, the remembrance of Julia's sad eyes haunted me, and I could not but feel considerable misgivings as to the fate of young Robert. Dead men,' so the pirates' proverb runs, 'tell no tales;' and one crime the more could but slightly affect the seared and hardened con

science of Desperado Dick, if it seemed the readiest method of securing immunity from detection. It was only too likely that Robert Carthew was lying in an unblessed grave by land or sea, and that Harvey had not scrupled to remove from his path a troublesome witness.

He wore,

We reached Detroit in due course of time; but there a disappointment awaited us. The captive in the red wig turned out to be, not Richard Harvey, but a noisy, whisky-drinking Irishman, who vehemently demanded his liberty, and as obstinately proclaimed his name to be Dan Mahoney, 'onst' of County Clare, but now of America generally. This clamorous Milesian had been, so the Detroit police assured us, in a far more advanced and incoherent state of intoxication when just arrested, and even now it was very difficult to draw from him an intelligible answer. however, according to the description supplied by the landlady of the fictitious Robert Carthew, the identical clothes in which our absconding cashier had made his final exit from Chicago; while in his pockets were letters and memoranda obviously belonging to the defaulter, and, to cap all, the red wig was undoubtedly the same which had long passed muster among us as the genuine capillary growth of Julia's brother. The man himself was an unpromising subject from whom to extract information. His whisky-soddened brain-for his intemperance was evidently habitual-was proof against argument and remonstrance, and, beyond wild assertions that the Mahoneys were an old stock, that America was a land of freedom, and that he, Dan, would soon apply a shillelagh to the skulls of thedhurty police to whom he owed his detention, little or nothing could be drawn from him.

I should have given up this Hibernian Trinculo in despair; but the superintendent, more familiar with the foibles of this interesting class of Irish immigrant, took the patient in hand, and, by dint of patience, flattery, and mint-juleps, wormed out of him whatever information mortal ingenuity could extract. Mr Bunce looked very serious when he came back to us.

'Now, Mr Gresham,' said he, 'this, I calculate, is like a game of chess with half one's pawns lost, and the moves muddled. We've given Dick time, and if he has used it as so spry a chap had oughter, we mout as well try to run down an elk on foot. But nobody's perfect, and he may have thrown away a chance as well as we. Here is what I have pumped out of the drunken Paddy yonder. This fellow Dan had been at a Fenian lodge at Marshall, on the line we've travelled. There he met Desperado Dick, who saw his condition, treated him to liquor, and paid him fifty dollars to exchange clothes with him, saying that the barter was for a wager. That is all he knows. What we have to do is to get back to Marshall as fast as the cars will take us.'

Arrived at the small township of Marshall, and having in vain made inquiry among the porters and hangers-on, white and black, of the station as to the proceedings of the fugitive, we stood for a while perplexed, when, to my delight, I caught sight of a sun-browned face that I well knew, that of the old farmer who had once told me of his floating recollections connected with the features of the false Robert Carthew.

'Dick Harvey, be he?' exclaimed the old man

with a west-country whoop of exultation. Then, squire, you may say to your dying day my memory's none so bad for my years, nor yet my eyesight, I guess. Reckon I saw the critter, an hour since, in his own black hair and a suit of coarse blanketcloth, such as bricklaying Irishers wear, start by the cars for Katamayoo.'

'Only an hour ago! Why, it was late last night that the exchange of clothes was effected!' said I wonderingly.

But the old farmer chuckled. 'You know our country pretty well for a Britisher, Mr Gresham, but you don't know it quite. The bridge over Blue Clay Gully has wanted repairs a long while, but the secretary of this railway wouldn't present the repairs till he'd netted his premium on the dividends. Last night there was a tidy smash -no life lost, but work for the bone-setters-and fifty fine oxen, besides hogs, smothered in the Gully mud. They turned out a gang at four dollars and what they chose to drink, by lanternlight, felled the trees, sawed the planks, threw over a sort of bridge, and set the line to work, they did. That's why Dick war delayed; but he's at Katamayoo now, for I heern him book for it.'

This news electrified us. Western Jem smiled grimly, and thrust his bony hand into the bosom of his frayed and tarnished waistcoat of black silk, feeling for the buckhorn haft of his inseparable bowie-knive. The literary policeman was radiant; while, to judge by the expressive countenance of Superintendent Bunce, he might have been engaged in closing the steel handcuffs on the wrists of the runaway with a sharp and satisfactory snap. 'But how are we to get there in time?' It was I who put the question, and nobody could answer it. Katamayoo, by American measurement, was not far off, perhaps some twenty miles distant, or, it might be, a league or so more, from our base of operations. But no train would come up for ninety-seven minutes, and to give that amount of law, added to the start he already possessed, to Desperado Dick would be fatal to the success of our enterprise.

'No use telegraphing,' said the superintendent ruefully. There's no squire, nor yet no lawyer, to Katamayoo township, and if there is a county constable, most like he is some doddering dotard on crutches, not fit to hev a rough-and-tumble with Dick Harvey. If we could get there our

selves'

"We can,' said the Boston man, whose quick eyes had been busy in every nook and cornerwe can, Mr Bunce, if you and Mr Gresham air willing to risk a few. Under the shed to the left is an old locotomotive, rusted and broke down, but not badly hit. Now, I'm a bit of an engine-smith, and if somebody would loan me a hammer and drill, and you gentlemen would stoke up logs and tote the water, we'd be off, greased-lightning fashion, up line.'

The former contributor to the Boston press was as good as his word-nay, better, for he approved himself so skilful in handling such rude tools as. we could procure for him in the overgrown village, that, seconded by our hearty efforts as regarded water and fuel, the creaking, crazy old engine was ere long under weigh, and we started for Katamayoo at a jumbling, staggering trot, such as that which a worn-out but well-bred cab horse can occasionally perform under pressure of whipcord. We reached

Katamayoo a full half hour before the normal train could possibly arrive there.

Chap in coarse blanketing, black hair, neck-ornothing look, arrived here from Marshall by last cars. What's come of the critter?' inquired Mr Bunce of the station-master, whom he knew.

What the station-master, who was a little, meagre, inquisitive old man, with a green shade over his eyes, knew regarding the fugitive was quickly ascertained. Among several travellers in blanket suits, more or less labour-stained, one active, dark-haired passenger had attracted more notice than the others. He had asked questions, thereby proving himself to be a stranger to the district. He had expressed, firstly, a desire to hire a horse and gig; and on hearing that no vehicle was to be had on hire at that sequestered spot, he had purchased a horse, with saddle and bridle, at Bryant's farm, and had set off, at a round pace, on the road to Corunna, to which place he had somewhat ostentatiously inquired the distance before starting.

That's a blind,' said Superintendent Bunce scornfully-a mere cave-in. Corunna, forsooth! I wish I may be branded mean, if Dick's point isn't Grandhaven, yonder, beside the lake, among the woods. Onst there, he could take boat across, and make tracks for St Louis and California. Push on, and we'll hev him yet.'

So, by dint of private influence and liberal pay ment, we hired a wagon drawn by two powerful horses, and with a spare saddle-horse in tow, off we struck into the forest-road in pursuit of the fugitive.

It is a wild country that fills up the peninsula between Lakes Huron and Erie to the east and south, and the far-stretching waters of Lake Michigan to the west. The black pine-forest, intersected by sluggish streams, near which grew ash and alder, willow and mimosa, rolled away before us for leagues untold. The clearings were few, and the population scanty, and it was but seldom that we encountered a human being, or saw any trace of man or his works, save only the rough road and the rude bridges of unhewn timber that spanned the creeks. At last, we came to a point where the route formed a fork, and where, on a blazed' tree, the bark of which had been slashed away by the axe, were painted on the gleaming white wood two ill-executed arrows, beneath one of which was written, "To Corunna;' while beneath the other was inscribed, 'To Grandhaven,' in characters almost obliterated by time and weather. The superintendent hesitated for a few moments, and then ordered our driver, a taciturn country lad, to take the latter route. On we plunged into the pine-forest, the sandy road growing rougher, and the swamps more frequent, until at length we espied a long, low, straggling building, roofed with bark, which stood by the road-side. This was plainly one of those 'shebeens,' or taverns of the humblest pretensions, so common in the sparsely settled West, and which are in most cases kept by Irish immigrants. This was one of the poorest of its class, and we should have passed it with little heed, had it not been that a saddled horse stood before the clumsy door, his bridle fastened to a stake.

'We have him! Look to your arms, boys,' cried the superintendent breathlessly. But the object of our pursuit had quick ears, and had

as it was, since, with the exception of a couple of flat loaves of corn-bread and a flask of whisky, we were destitute of provisions, I was surprised to hear Western Jem chuckle to himself, not once, but repeatedly, with a secret sense of satisfaction only comparable to that of a magpie that has triumphantly succeeded in concealing stolen property. What amuses me, mister?' said the ex-hunter in answer to my somewhat peevish inquiry. What does that sinnify, 'cept to this nigger? And then, as if the joke were too admirable a one to be lost, he added: Dick fired the bush to blind his trail, he did, and to make the bush too hot to hold us. Then he set spurs to his nag, and made for Leaping Buck's Pool, a place every woodsman of these parts knows; and Dick Harvey larned of it, I guess, when he broke prison at North Buffalo, and lay hid eight months in the forests. But he was out in his calculation that time, and didn't make allowance for the wind-let alone knowing what a forest-fire is, as this child knows it. I'd bet ten beaver-skins, squire, to the meanest pelure ye like, mink or squirrel, that Desperado Dick has been caught in his own trap.'

And so it proved; for when, under the guidance of the hunter-policeman, we reached the little oasis in the forest where the runaway had sought shelter, and where the Pool of the Leaping Buck, with its crystal-clear fountain and girdle of swampy soil lay belted in by blackened trees and charred vegetation, we found the unhappy man lying dead among the moss-grown rocks that bordered the pure water of the spring. The moist soil, and the many small rills that intersected the marshy clearing, combined with the absence of dry timber, had indeed checked the actual progress of the conflagration, and, unburned, a patch of wet ground lay exempt from the general ruin. But the fugitive had not reckoned on the effects of the fierce furnace-heat that had withered the very wild-flowers that grew in the spray of the trickling fountain, nor on the blinding and suffocating smoke, which had probably served to shorten his sufferings. He was lying among the stones, as if asleep, with his head pillowed on one arm, nor was there any expression of pain or of alarm on his haggard, handsome face, now fixed for ever. The belt which he wore beneath his clothes, and which was heavy with gold, contained the whole sum with which he had absconded.

At Chicago a new surprise awaited me, for, on entering the house of the friend to whose hospitable care Julia had been consigned, I was confronted by, this time, no counterfeit presentment of Robert Carthew, but Julia's brother in genuine flesh and blood. His sallow complexion and hollow cheeks told of hardships lately endured; but he seemed, what I had always expected him to prove, a thoroughly good fellow, and we shook hands and fraternised with sincere pleasure. Robert's story was simply this: He had, in landing in America, fallen in, at a waterside hotel, with a stranger of fluent speech and winning manners, who had, without apparent effort, extracted from the unsuspicious lad full information as to the nature of the business that had brought him across the Atlantic, and the situation that awaited him at Chicago. It was easy to guess that Desperado Dick had soon formed the bold project of substituting himself for our cashier elect, and his first care was necessarily to get his dupe out of the way. With this view, on leaving

the theatre, on the day following that of young Carthew's disembarkation, he had contrived to inveigle his victim into one of those dens where illicit gambling, crimping of sailors, and mad orgies of drunkenness go hand in hand, and where nothing that occurred remained present to Robert's memory save that he drank a glass of some unknown liquor, lost his consciousness, and, when he regained his senses, found himself in the wet forecastle of an American whale-ship, beating out to sea, and was informed, in answer to his remonstrances, that he had 'shipped as a landsman,' and must hold to his bargain, and do his duty for three years, under the gentle persuasion of rope's-end, marline-spike, and knuckle-duster.

Poor Carthew received thereupon the fare and wages of a common seaman until such time as the good ship Flying-fish luckily sprung a leak, and put into harbour at San Francisco, where he was fortunately able to desert and claim the protection of the British consul, by whose assistance he had at length reached Chicago, in time to fill his post of cashier, and to give away his sister on the occasion of her wedding. This happy event took place two months later; and when, after a few years, we finally left America for England, Robert deservedly succeeded to my place as manager.

LOOKING BACK.

I LEAN on the rectory gates again,
As oft I've leant in the days of old,
When the rector's daughter, Miriam Mayne,
Was aye a treasure to me untold;
And straight I muse on that olden time,

In the fading light of the autumn day, As the dreamy tones of the curfew's chime Float over the shadowy woods away.

The cushat calls, as of old, from fields

That fill with mist as the daylight fades, And the dim, mysterious twilight steals

O'er hill and dale with her dreamy shades;
And the pale, proud moon, with her wan lip curled,
Who asks no aid of sail or of oar,

Swims up the east from the under-world,
As she swam in the autumn eves of yore.

But there comes not now, as then there came,
Up the gravelled pathway unto me,
A maid it was, oh, so sweet to name !

A form it was, oh, such bliss to see!
And, standing here by the gates, I miss
The silvery ring of her every tone,
The smile and the look, the greeting kiss,
And the soft white hand within mine own.

Nor ever again, at the twilight hour,

When stars steal out in the heavens above,
And dew hangs light upon leaf and flower,
Oh, never again shall I meet my love!
For one May morn, as the eastern skies

Were flushing faint with the dawn, she died;
And cold, cold now in her grave she lies,

By yon gray church on the bare hill-side.

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Pater

noster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH Also sold by all Booksellers.

No. 445.

OUR

FEATHER FAR M.

IN FOUR CHAPTERS.-CHAPTER I.

'We may as well put up the shutters at once!' said I, with the bitterness of sheer despair in my heart and in my voice. As I spoke, from my leathern arm-chair in the trim bank parlour, where the white flowers of the jasmine-creeper peeped coyly through the deep window, I could see through the open door into the bank itself. Very quiet and deserted the latter looked, with its matted floor and counter of well-worn mahogany, the wire-blinds, the fire-buckets, the copper scoop and scales, and the loud-ticking office clock, that kept up its pertinacious beat with irritating regularity. We were not much disturbed by customers at Dullingham, except on market-days, but I thought I had never seen the old place wear such an aspect of hopeless stagnation.

'No, no, Master Morris-beg pardon, Mr Warburton, now-while there is life there is hope, sir. It would break my heart, I think, to see us gazetted. If we could but get some small supply of ready cash-two thousand pounds or so-we might keep our heads above water.' So spoke the old cashier, little, faithful, formal Mr Pritchard, whose shining bald head was among my very earliest recollections.

'If you think so, Pritchard,' said I, wavering, 'the reversion might bring as much, or more; but I am afraid it would only be a stop-gap-another sop to Cerberus.'

Times were changed with the long-established country banking firm of Crump and Warburton, in which, for three generations, my kith and kin had been concerned, and which deservedly bore an honoured name through all that southern county of which Dullingham is an ancient market-town. It had been all very well in Old Crump's lifetime (I really owe an apology to the shade of my greatuncle for thus unceremoniously describing him, but such was the name by which he was everywhere known), for he was one of those quaint, stiff-backed men of business who never venture out

PRICE 1d.

of their depth. But my father, who succeeded him as head of the firm, was unluckily drawn into a more modern and speculative style of banking, and we had suffered heavy loss by the bursting of certain pretentious bubble-companies in London. Then, at my father's death, I found myself sole surviving partner, and was soon compelled to sink my small private fortune in the apparently unavailing effort to keep the good ship, Crump and Warburton, afloat. And now, while depositors, warned by some strange instinct which leads rats to desert a falling house, were leaving us, and bills coming due, the collapse of a new association in the City had deprived us of a portion of our remaining assets. Bankruptcy stared us in the face.

But the old cashier, a most excellent accountant, was, for once, more sanguine than myself, his junior. He was confident that a timely supply of money would enable us to meet our engagements; and he pointed out to me, with an array of figures to back his opinion, that we had still resources, and might recover our old position, could we but keep our credit untarnished. 'I don't like to press you about selling that reversion, Master Morris,' said the old clerk, unconsciously reverting to the familiar mode of address that dated from my childhood, and it is certainly a sacrifice. But, for the good name of Crump and Warburton'.

'For the good name of the old house, and to clear us fairly with the world,' I broke in with a warmth pardonable in a man of four-and-twenty, 'I would give my last crust. Let me, if we are to break, at least finish as an honest man, owing no one a sixpence. Besides, Aunt Letty is a fine, tough old lady, who may outlive me any day. I'll sell the reversion.'

Now, the reversion which I had agreed to sell was simply my contingent life-interest in a sum of money bequeathed by my bachelor great-uncle, Crump, and which had been thus curiously settled. The first usufruct of the money, which was in the Three-per-cents, Consols, and produced something over six hundred a year, free from incometax, had been given to my aunt, Miss Letitia