men, each yelling for vengeance at the top of his voice. The windows were full of women and children, shrilly crying. And twenty cur dogs, barking in as many keys, lent background to the bedlam.. Pedro was trembling with excitement. Cartwright quieted him with pats on the neck.

Jose Portuondo, still humming his broken battle-cry, stepped forward. He was the oldest, the blackest, the biggest of the family. He made a shrill oration, inviting Cartwright to dismount from his caballo and be painfully transformed into food for coyotes. Cartwright smiled.

"I am sorry that I have another engagement for this evening," he told them in Spanish. "Since it is with a lady I cannot, of course, break it. But tomorrow-manana-I will come and spend the day with you."

Fired by the presence and the cries of all his clan Jose leaped forward and grasped Pedro by the bridle reins. At the same instant the pony felt the prick of the spur in his side. As he sprang into the air his rider leaned over and

floored Jose with a smashing blow on the nose. The other warriors scuttled out of the way of the pony's heels. And Cartwright, turning back over the saddle to wave his hand in farewell, cried, ominously, "Manana! Manana!"

Pedro took him to the Lazy H ranch in time for the second two step on the program. The festivities lasted until one o'clock in the morning. Cartwright had' three divine waltzes with the girl from Boston, and his partner in the Virginia reel was the wife of the second richest cattle man in the territory, who wore a gown which she had just brought back from Paris. One of the bachelors present was Cartwright's superior, the forest. supervisor, who had stopped off on a trip of inspection after riding thirty-five miles from Sante Fe since noon. To him, when the dance was over, he told the story of his encounter with the Portuondos.

"In the morning," said the Supervisor, with a twinkle in his eye, "we'll stop off on our way up to the shack, and make that bluff of yours good. If you'll hold

half of them off with your gun I think I can lick the rest. And when I get through you can clean up what's left."

It would be incorrect and unfair to give the impression that Cartwright and his fellows are fond of fighting and are accustomed to enforce their authority with fists and more deadly weapons. To the contrary they will go to almost any length to avoid and prevent trouble. They know how to be diplomatic in two or three languages. It is part of their daily work to settle disputes between furious and violent sheep-herders and cattlemen. They take great pains to

explain the law to men who violate it ignorantly. They give every offender the benefit of every doubt. They are the apostles of peace and order and respect for the rights of others.. BUTthe small word should be printed in large capitals-one has only to look at Cartwright, tall and lean and hard, with his cold gray eye and his quiet voice and manner, to know that in any emergency he may be trusted to look after himself and after the credit and prestige of his beloved service. For John Cartwright is very far from being an amateur or a dilettante. He is a Man who is not afraid,

and who knows his job.

they were in ages before the earliest dawn of history. While countless dynasties of Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome have flourished and expired, they have survived. Civilizations have arisen and perished, but they remain unaltered. -save that they have greatly diminished. in numbers. As Stanley says, there was doubtless a time when the pigmies "reigned over Darkest Africa, undisputed lords."

Dwarfs have furnished themes for countless romances. They divide with giants the interest of a thousand nursery tales. To no small extent the domain of superstition is invaded by them. All countries, more or less, are infested by gnomes and goblins. They appeal to the imagination, and connected with them there is always at least a suggestion of the supernatural.

Nevertheless, the accounts of the pigmies given by Herodotus and others had long been set down as purely fictional

when they were re-discovered by Schweinfurth. He found that the men averaged about four feet, six inches in height, while the women were three or four inches shorter. Their color was like that of "coffee slightly roasted;" their legs were short, their hands very small, and their stomachs huge. They had a habit of leaping about in the high herbage "like grasshoppers," and one of them, purchased by the explorer, was to such an extent subject to this inclination that he could never learn to carry a plate without spilling more or less of the contents.

Another explorer, named Miani, who followed in Schweinfurth's footsteps, bought two young dwarfs for a dog and a calf, and, taking them back to Europe with him, gave them to Count Miniscalchi. By that nobleman they were brought up and educated, proving both intelligent

and tractable. They were named Tebo and Chairal

lah. Chairallah

Tebo

grew to manhood.

and, though it had

COURTESY SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON

been freely predicted by many skeptical persons that he would turn out to be just an ordinary human being in respect to height, he never did, as a matter of fact, attain more than the ordinary than the ordinary pigmy stature.

The first pigmy seen by Stanley in Africa was a young woman, only thirtythree inches tall, yet "perfectly formed, and of a glistening sleekness of body." She appeared to be about seventeen years old, and her complexion was that of a quadroon, or the color of yellow ivory. Her eyes were magnificent, but "absurdly large for so small a creaturealmost as big as those of a gazelle, and extremely lustrous." Though absolutely nude, she was entirely self-pos

sessed and evinced more curiosity than fear.

Measurements made by by Stanley showed that four feet, six inches was about the maximum height of the dwarfs, some of whom were not more than three feet in stature. A full-grown man might weigh as much as ninety pounds. Scattered over a region about two-thirds the size of Scotland, they live in the uncleared forest, and maintain themselves by hunting. They are called Akka, or Batwa.

Subsequent observation of these little. people led Stanley to describe them as "parasites"-their method of living being to establish their more or less temporary villages around the permanent towns

occupied by native agricultural tribes of negroes. To the latter they make themselves useful in various ways, hunting game (which they sell to the big negroes for knives and other supplies), and acting as scouts. Incidentally, by theft and otherwise, they levy a considerable tax upon the host tribe; but the latter cannot well afford to anger them or drive them away, inasmuch as their help is very desirable and even necessary in a region where inter-tribal wars are of frequent occurrence.

They are fierce little folk, and, though they have no weapons save bows and spears, their warlike disposition and poisoned arrows make them greatly dreaded as enemies. One of these arrows will kill an elephant with as much certainty as a bone smashing rifle bullet, and a mere prick will bring death to a man in a few minutes. The pigmy warrior always carries in a small leather bottle hanging to his belt a supply of the poison, which is said to be obtained by macerating the bodies of