for your having lived. When I get back to Chicago I will tell my sister of you, and if we can make any arrangement so you can be placed at school, I will come for you and take you to her home. So, Jennie," he said, "until you hear from me, live on as you have lived, remembering that at all times God is merciful and just, and if it be wise for you to leave He will plan it so; if not, then live on as you are living, make the most of life in the way of good, and be contented that, lonely as you may be, your soul is as pure and free from sin as when you lay a helpless babe in the arms of your dying mother."

Then he handed her his little pocket Bible, telling her it contained Christ's message to the world, that His way was the only way, at all times He was merciful, He was just.

She took the little book and placed it on the stand in her room. It was hers, Rexford Brooks had given it to her; she was happy, so happy, she leaned out of the window and murmured, "God is merciful, God is just."

They stood on the platform next day as the east-bound express was about to pull out, he took her hand in his and said, "I will write to you as soon as I get home and I will pray God to help us in our plan.

God bless, you, Jennie, God bless you." And a moment later he was waving her farewell from the rear platform, while with tears in her eyes and a load on her heart that would not lift, she watched the train till it disappeared over the plain to the eastward. Of all the long lonely days she had ever known, the most lonely of them all was the one on which she bade Rexford Brooks good-bye.

The next morning as she stood in the door, looking off over the plain, she saw away to the southwest a faint cloud of dust. She watched as it drew nearer and nearer, and in a short time made out a horse and its rider. It was Terry Donavan, the one cowboy on all the range she had ever admired. Admired him because he was brave and true to all whom he loved. All cowboys sow their wild oats, and years ago Terry had sown his. He had "killed his man" in Las Vegas, and in a drunken row in Roswell had shot Mexicans, right and left. But this was years ago, and now he had settled down and was living at peace with his fellowman.

Many was the time she and Terry, arm in arm together, had walked up and down the track, and once he had asked her to be his wife, and she had told him that

she had never felt in her breast that which he had called love.

"But," she had said, "if I ever do, Terry, I'll tell you, maybe, some time I will know more about it and then I will answer you." But that was months ago, and now Terry was by her side again, smilng as he touched his broad-brimmed hat, and reached out his hand.

"Well, Jennie," he said, "we are driving the cattle down to the corral today and tomorrow we start cutting 'em out, so I broke 'way from the bunch and rode over to chat a bit with you, and see if you had a word of love to say to me and that you will be my wife."

He still held her hand and the gray eyes of the cowboy were looking into the brown ones of the girl before him.

"Terry," she said, "let us walk up the track a ways, I have something to say to you," and they turned and walked away side by side.

"Terry," she said, "I thought more of you than anyone I ever knew till yesterday." And then she told him all, told him how Rexford Brooks had come in on the express, and how, without any excuse whatever, he remained behind when the train went puffing away. Told him of the moonlight walk and of the story he had told her of the Great Shepherd above, and how when the train was about to start, he had taken her hand in his, and, as he bade her good-bye, asked God to bless her. "And some day, Terry," she said, "he is coming back again and I'm going with him to his sister's home in Chicago. And I am going to college; just think of it, Terry, after all these years of waiting, that which I have longed for most of all is to be realized. And, some day, Terry, I will come back here looking as grand and fine as some of the ladies that go through here on the express. No, Terry, I can not be your wife, it would be doing us both a wrong. It would not be right to give you my hand when my heart is over the plain towards the morning sun. It wouldn't be right Terry, it wouldn't be right. But you have always been my friend, and as long as I live and wherever I go I shall have only friendly thoughts of you. I'm sorry, Terry, but it wouldn't be right to marry you thinking as I do. It would be a sin, Terry, it would be a sin!"

They stopped, and as her dress brushed the leaves of a soap plant, a jack rabbit sleeping there started up and bounded away. She hardly knew the voice that answered her.

"Jennie," he said, "Jennie! I really

didn't expect anything like this. I never have met anything in this world but disappointment; but this, Jennie, is the bitterest one of them all. Maybe it is wrong Jennie, maybe it is, to think that a slip of a girl like you could ever love a great rough cow-puncher like me. Maybe it is, maybe it is. But, Jen, I have known you ever since you were a little one in short skirts, I have watched you grow up and bud and bloom into the fairest flower that ever grew on this great plain. Many and many a night out on my lonely watch I have laid on my blanket with only heaven's blue dome and the stars above me, and thought and dreamed of you, and longed so many times for the day to come, when I could take you to my mother in "Vegas" and say, "Mother, this is Jennie, my wife, as you have loved me love her. I know I'm only a cowboy, Jen; I have never read the Bible; I have never lived in the fear of God, but as a great strong man can love the woman he would make his wife, I have grown to love you. Maybe I've done wrong, maybe 'tis a sin, but if God puts angels on earth to live, and man seeing them loves them, ought the sin to be placed on the man? Ought it, Jen, ought it? And now, Jen, when you get back there where you think you will be so happy, should things turn out different than you expect, and you need a true friend to help you in any way, remember that back on the great staked plain lives one that will go to the world's end for you. If ever you need help, ask for it and the cowboy who has loved you so long and so well will come to you." They stopped as they came to his horse, he took her hand in his, their eyes met.

"Jennie," he said, "may the Master, who you say rules all, guide you ever onward. Good-bye little girl, good-bye," and then he was gone.

Away to the southwest of Rogers, miles and miles over an almost deserted plain, close to the banks of the Rio Pecos lies the river stockyards. There is not a single house in sight, but in the distance to the south can be seen at times a cloud of smoke that shows where Roswell, the prettiest little city in the Pecos valley, lies. And away to the westward, fifty miles or more, looms up Mount El Capitan, standing like a sentinel, guarding this Pecos valley, which man, by turning on water, has made to blossom like an Eden.

The road built the yards at this particular point because water was near and they could be reached handily by the stockmen who, for hundreds of miles

around, herded great droves of cattle and sheep; and here on the day following his visit at Rogers, we again see Terry Donavan.

Thousands of cattle are in the pens and in droves near by; while the men are busy at the chutes in cutting out and loading. Some of the men in the outfit have brought their families along, and, from a cluster of covered wagons to the east of the yards, can be heard the sound of children's voices.

Sud

Heedless of where they were going, two of the little boys have, unseen, climbed the fence and are running in play up and down one of the alleys or runways. denly there comes a great crash. The cut out steers in the big pen have broken the fence and are stampeding down the runway. They were close at hand when the boys see their danger. One of them runs to the fence and climbs, the other gives a startled cry and stands as though paralyzed. But over the fence a man bounds, and catching the little one in his arms, lifts him high above his head and places him on the plank walk on the top of the fence. Then the steers struck him; he had started to climb, but too late; they bore him down and tramped him beneath their hoofs, and after they had passed over him, the cowboys picked him up and tenderly carried him back to the wagons. and in a sorrowful group they gathered around him, for in the presence of death, the cowboy is as tender as a woman. Slowly the sands of life were ebbing, he knew his race was run, he knew that in a short "little while" his soul would solve the great mystery of the hereafter. His lips moved and those nearest caught the name "Jennie." They knew whom he wanted, and over the wire to Rogers sped the message, "Terry is dying, asking for Come."

you.

She was standing in the kitchen door when the operator read her the message. Her face turned deathly white, the frail form tottered, and but for the man's strong arm she would have fallen. But in a moment she calmed herself and said:

"Terry dying, dying, wants me to come. Dying, dying, poor Terry, poor Terry. And the express has just gone, no train till tomorrow, what will I do, what can I do?"

Then she thought of her horse; she would ride it to Benton, halfway; change her mount and finish the ride. And fifteen minutes later she was speeding over the prairie as fact as her pony could carry her.

Terry was dying, he had sent for her,

he had loved her and asked her to be his wife; she had told him "No," and sent him away with a broken heart. And still, dying, he had sent for her. On and on over the lonely prairie sped the little "bronco." On and on and on, and just as the sun was going down behind El Capitan, she reached Benton. She made known her wants; her saddle was transferred to another horse, and with the loss of but a few moments she was again flying over the plain toward the place where Terry Donavan, surrounded by his cowboy friends, was slowly dying.

"We have sent for her," they told him, "and the operator has wired back that she left there at three. So if she rides fast she will be here by midnight."

"Coming," he murmured, "coming. Oh! Jennie, Jennie, may the great God you speak of be ever your guide. Dear little girl, dear little girl, will I see you again, will I see you again?"

Then he became quiet and they knew he was sleeping. They watched him and once, when he smiled and his lips moved, they knew he was dreaming, but of whom, they wondered. Was it the gray-haired mother in Vegas who knew not her boy was dying, or was it of the brown-eyed girl, who even then was speeding towards them across the moonlit plain as fast as a Texas mustang could carry her. But near midnight he roused and reached out his hands to those nearest. "All in, boys," he said, "I'm going, I'll be gone when she gets here, I won't see her again unless, u-n-l-e-s-s-." There was no movement of pain, nothing to indicate that he was suffering, but as quietly as an infant sinks to rest in its mother's arms, the soul of the man went out to the great beyond.

Terry Donavan, the noblest cowboy of them all, was dead. In his going the world lost a hero and Heaven gained one. He met nothing on earth but disappointment, but in Heaven he will receive his reward, "For in as much as ye did it unto one of my little ones, ye did it unto me."

An hour after he had passed away, there came across the plain the thud of a horse's hoofs coming in a swinging gallop, and in a few moments more a dark gray bronco, bearing upon his back a frail bit of a woman, stopped in the glare of a smoldering fire.

They helped her dismount. She looked into the tear-stained faces of those around her, then at the still form on the blanket, and said, "Too late, too late?" They nodded, and she went to where he was lying and pulled down the blanket that covered the dead face. She knelt down and placed the head, cold and stiff, in her lap.

"Dead, dead. I tried to get here, Terry, I tried to get here. Oh Terry! Terry! why did they take you, why did they take you?" And then for a long time she sat and looked at the dead face of the man that, living, had loved her as few women have been loved. "I might have said yes; it wouldn't have hurt me; he might have died easier. Poor Terry, poor Terry."

The golden sun was peeping over the eastern plain before she moved his head from her lap and covered the blanket over it.

"Dead," she said, "dead; and God is merciful? God is just?"

They tore rough lumber from the stockyard fence and made him a coffin. She heard every blow of the hammer, but said nothing. And, when it was finished, they took the still form and placed it into it. It was much too long, and the boards they covered it with came so close to the dead face; but then he was dead, what did it matter? Close to the river bank they dug a grave in the red sand, shallow, so shallow, it seemed. And there they buried him out on that great sweep of prairie where nothing but the soap plant and the bunch grass will ever grow near, where no human being but the cowboy or the herder will ever pass, alone, all alone, with nothing to mark his resting place, on the banks of that treacherous river, sleeps Terry Donavan, a cowboy hero.

As soon as it was over she asked for her horse, and they asked her to stay till the next day's express.

"No," she said, "I want to be alone; I will ride back." She drank some coffee, thanked them for their kindness to Terry and herself, then mounted and rode away. The foreman looked after her till only a cloud of dust showed where the bronco, with untiring strides, was speeding home. Then he turned to his men. "Poor little girl, poor little girl!" he said.

It was midnight by the hands of the little clock on the kitchen shelf when she reached Rogers. She went up to her room, and taking the little Bible in her hand, knelt by the window and looked off over the plain.

"Dead, dead! Terry dead, and he told me God was merciful. God was just!"

Day

And then a month drifted by, and nothing came from Rexford Brooks. after day she would look off to the eastward for the first glimpse of smoke that told that the express was coming. Day after day she stood in the door and watched as one by one the passengers got off and came hurrying in. But the one she longed to see was not among them.

Day after day she scanned the few letters the mail clerk left, but the one she waited for did not come.

And so month after month drifted by. Reader, do you know, can you realize what even a month means out on that wide and dreary plain?

Not a house, not a tree, not a sign of civilization for miles and miles; nothing but one dead, level tract of land stretching away and away. Can we know what she suffered; can we know the heart aches, the bitter tears, the sleepless hours?

Night after night she had taken the little Bible he had left her, and looking from the window up at the bright stars shining down from heaven, prayed that God would send him back again; that some day her hopes might be fulfilled, and that she might learn as she longed to of the world. But one day, after she had nearly given up hearing from him, Charlie, the mail clerk, handed her a letter as he passed her by one of the tables, saying as he did so, "I did as you asked me to, Jennie, I kept it out from the others. I guess it's the one you've been looking for; it's from Chicago. She took it and after the meal was well under way, she walked to the window near where Charlie was sitting, and opening it read:

Miss Jennie Burton,

Rogers, Texas:

Dear Young Lady-My brother Rexford was taken sick on the train soon

after leaving your place, and after three months of sickness he died. He spoke often of you, and asked God in prayer to care for you and comfort you. He knew that he was going home, and said that I was to tell you that God ruled all for the best, and though he could not meet you again in this world, he hoped some day to meet you in that home where only those whose souls are pure can ever enter. MILDRED BROOKS.

The face the mail clerk saw when she finished reading was ashen white. The hand that held the letter trembled; she turned and without a word tottered out of the room.

That night she sat in her little room, looking from the open window out over the plain. "Dead!" she said, "dead; never to come back, never to come back! The one I thought most of in all this wide world! Why was he taken? Why was he taken? Why was I left to suffer like this? Why did they not let me die when my angel mother died? Why? Why? And Terry is dead too. Brave, noble Terry. None left now that loves or cares for me. Dead! The truest friends I ever had. Dead! And God is merciful, God is just!" She knelt, and reaching out toward the star-decked heavens cried, "Have pity! Have pity!"

A brakeman on a "wild" stock train, speeding by, seeing her kneeling there in the moonlight, waved his lantern and hallooed. Then turning to the shipper, standing by his side said, "Poor little girl, poor little girl!"

-The Australasian Budget.

F

ROM the time I was old enough to have any idea about different occupations for men, I formed the idea that I would be a locomotive engineer, and I clung steadily to that idea until, finally, I secured a place as caller for engine crews in the roundhouse of the Hamilton & Northern Railroad, when I felt myself to be on the high road to success. I was only nineteen years old when I secured the place as caller, so I had two years ahead of me before I could hope to get on the road as a fireman. My knowledge of where everyone lived in the village of Hart is what got me the place, and I found out, after I had served a couple of years, that I was likely to keep the place as caller for the same reason that I had secured it.

Two or three young fellows were sent out firing, whom I felt that I should have gone ahead of, and I felt considerably vexed over the matter. Charley Brown,

who was wiping in the roundhouse, boasted to me that he would go firing ahead of me, and that I was to stay where I was, on account of my being so valuable a man where I was, and so worked on my feelings that I had fully determined to quit before I would let him get any advantage over me.

It was the custom of the roundhouse foreman, when he needed a fireman, to promote the hostler's oldest helper to the position of fireman, and then place the next man he meant to promote with the hostler (or engine dispatcher, as he is called on some roads) to give him an opportunity to learn what he could about an engine before going in actual service as a fireman.

One day the foreman sent the man out firing who was helping the day hostler, and instructed me to go and tell Charley Brown to report to the hostler as his assistant. Instantly I rebelled. "I have been here much longer than Charley has, Mr. Jones, and I would like to have the place," I said.

"Well, Arthur, I don't know as we have any seniority in the house. Still I want to be fair and give every man a chance.

It is not easy to get a good caller, and you are a good one. For that reason I have rather held you back, and would like to keep you where you are," replied the foreman.

"I thank you for your kind words," said I, "but I have desired for years to be an engineer. To succeed, I have got to get a start as a fireman. You know I commenced here with that intention. I could hardly afford, in justice to myself, to settle down to a life job of calling engine crews. I hope, Mr. Jones, you will give me a chance." My words had effect on him, for he asked:

"Who is there that I could get in your place who could do the work?"

"Jim Atkins!" I eagerly answered.

"Bring him here and we will see what he thinks about it. Perhaps I may be able to fix you out after all," he said kindly.

I was not long in getting Jimmie before the foreman and, as he and I had had a previous understanding, he readily undertook to do the work I had been doing, and Mr. Jones told me to report to the hostler. I felt greatly elated that I had made a start at my chosen calling, in spite of the difficulties I had encountered.

Charley Brown felt rather crestfallen at my success, but his spirits revived a few days later when he was made a helper to the night hostler. By the time he had worked a few nights he commenced to boast, almost every time he saw me, about how skillfully he worked injectors, knocked out fires, and handled the engines. This latter statement I rather doubted, but found out later, to my sorrow, that he did handle them occasionally.

Time went along, and I had become well versed in my new duties, when one day the foreman sent the caller to tell me to go out with Bill Everett on a freight engine to Crandall, 125 miles distant. The engine was already out of the house, waiting for a fireman, and it had been the need of getting a man at once that caused the foreman to put me on the engine in preference to one of he yard men, who were supposed to have more experience.