"Beg pardon, madame, but have you seen any one pass?"

The woman raised her head, and saw a respectable, severe looking man, in clothing rather neater than was common along Spanish Creek.

"Only one," she replied, "and he's the best man livin'. He's gone to get Johnny--he won't be gone long."

"Your husband, ma'am?"

"'Oh, no, sir; I never saw him before."

"One eye gone; broken nose; scar on right cheek; powder-marks on left--"

"Yes, sir, that's the man," said the wondering woman.

"Perhaps you may not have seen this?" said the man handing her one of the posters describing Jude.

Then he uttered a shrill whistle.

The woman read the paper through, and cried:

"It's somebody else--it _must_ be--no murderer would be so kind to a poor, friendless woman. Oh, God, have I betrayed him? _Don't_ take him, sir--it must be somebody else. I wish I had money--I would pay you more than the reward, just to go away and let him alone."

"Madame," replied the man, beckoning to two men who were approaching, "I could not accept it; nor will I accept the reward. It is the price of blood. But I am a minister of the gospel, ma'am, and in this godless generation it is my duty to see that the outraged dignity of the law is vindicated. My associates, I regret to say, are actuated by different motives."

"You just bet high on that!" exclaimed one of the two men who had approached, a low-browed, bestial ruffian. "Half a' thousan' 's more'n I could pan out in a fortnight, no matter how good luck I had. Parson he is a fool, but _we_, hain't no right to grumble 'bout it, seein' we git his share--hey, Parleyvoo?"

"You speak truly, Mike," replied his companion, a rather handsome looking Frenchman, of middle age. "And yet Jean Glorieaux likes not the labor. Were it not that he had lost his last ounce at monte, and had the fever for play still in his blood, not one sou would he earn in such ungentle a manner."

"God's worst curses on all of you!" cried the woman, with an energy which inspired her plain face and form with a terrible dignity and power, "if you lay a hand on a man who is the only friend a poor woman has ever found in the world!"

Glorieaux shuddered, and Mike receded a step or two: but the ex-minister maintained the most perfect composure, and exclaimed:

"Poor fools! It is written, 'The curse, causeless, shall not fall.' And yet, madame, I assure you that I most tenderly sympathize with you in your misfortunes, whatever they may be."

"Then let him alone!" cried the woman. "My only child has been stolen away from me--dear little Johnny--and the man offered to go get him. And you've made me betray him. Oh, God curse you all!"

"Madame," replied the still imperturbable parson, "the crime of blood-guiltiness cannot be imputed to you, for you did not know what you were doing."

The woman leaned against a tree, and waited until Glorieaux declared to the parson he would abandon the chase.

"It is useless," said he, striking a dramatic attitude, and pointing to the woman, "for her tears have quenched the fiery fever in the blood of Glorieaux."

"Then I'll git the hull thousand," growled Mike, "an' I'll need it, too, if I've got to stand this sort of thing much longer."

A confused sound of voices on the other side of the creek attracted the attention of the men, and caused the woman to raise her head. A moment later Jude appeared, with a child in his arms, and plunged into the water.

"Now we'll have him!" cried the parson; "and you, madame, will have your child. Be ready to chase him, men, if he attempts to run when he gets ashore."

"Go back! go back!" screamed the woman. "They are after you, these men.

Try to--"

The law-abiding parson placed his hand over the woman's mouth, but found himself promptly flying backward through space, while Mike roared:

"Touch a woman, will yer? No thousand dollars nor any other money, 'll hire me to travel with such a scoundrel. Catch him yerself, if yer want ter,"

"But if you do," said Glorieaux, politely, as he drew his revolver, "it will be necessary for Glorieaux to slay the Lord's anointed."

"Follered, by thunder!" said Mike.

It was true. During the few seconds which had been consumed in conversation, Jude got well into the creek. He had not seemed to hear the woman's warning; but now a greater danger threatened him, for on the opposite bank of the creek there appeared a man, who commenced firing at Jude's head and the small portion of his shoulders that was visible.

"The monster. Oh, the wretch!" screamed the woman. "He may hit Johnny, his only son! Oh, God have mercy on me, and save my child!"

A shot immediately behind her followed the woman's prayer, and Glorieaux exclaimed, pointing to the opposite bank, where Marksey was staggering and falling:

"Glorieaux gathered from your words that a divorce would be acceptable, madame. Behold, you have it!"

"Pity nobody didn't think of it sooner," observed Mike, shading his eyes as he stared intently at Jude, "for there's a red streak in the water right behind him."

The woman was already standing at the water's edge, with hands clasped in an agony of terror and anxiety. The three men hastened to join her.

"Wish I could swim," said Mike, "for he's gettin' weak, an' needs help."

The parson sprang into the water, and, in spite of the chill and the swift current, he was soon by Jude's side.

"Take the young un," gasped Jude, "for I'm a goner."

"Put your hand on my shoulder," said the parson. "I can get you both ashore."

'"Tain't no use," said Jude, feebly; "corpses don't count for much in Californy."

"But your immortal part," remonstrated the parson, trying to seize Jude by the hand which held little Johnny.

"God hev mercy on it!" whispered the dying man; "it's the fust time He ever had an excuse to do it."

Strong man and expert swimmer as the ex-minister was, he was compelled to relinquish his hold of the wounded man; and Jude, after one or two fitful struggles against his fate, drifted lifeless down the stream and into eternity, while the widowed mother regained her child. The man of God, the chivalrous Frenchman and the brutish Mike slowly returned to their camp; but no one who met them could imagine, from their looks, that they were either of them anything better than fugitives from justice.

A LOVE OF A COTTAGE.

We had been married about six months, and were boarding in the most comfortable style imaginable, when one evening, after dinner, Sophronia announced that her heart was set upon keeping house. _My_ heart sank within me; but one of the lessons learned within my half year of married life is, that when Sophronia's heart is set upon anything, the protests I see fit to make must be uttered only within the secret recesses of my own consciousness. Then Sophronia remarked that she had made up her mind to keep house in the country, at which information my heart sank still lower. Not that I lack appreciation of natural surroundings. I delight in localities where beautiful scenery exists, and where tired men can rest under trees without even being suspected of inebriety. But when any of my friends go house-hunting in the city, in the two or three square miles which contain all the desirable houses, their search generally occupies a month, during which time the searchers grow thin, nervous, absent-minded, and uncompanionable. What, then, would be _my_ fate, after searching the several hundred square miles of territory which were within twenty miles of New York. But Sophronia had decided that it was to be--and I,

"Mine not to make reply; Mine not to reason why; Mine but to do or die."

By a merciful dispensation of Providence, however, I was saved from the full measure of the fate I feared. Sophronia has a highly imaginative nature; in her a fancy naturally ethereal has been made super-sensitive by long companionship of tender-voiced poets and romancers. So when I bought a railway guide and read over the names of stations within a reasonable distance of New York, Sophronia's interest was excited in exact proportion to the attractiveness of the names themselves.

Communipaw she pronounced execrable. Ewenville reminded her of a dreadful psalm tune. Paterson recalled the vulgar question, "Who struck Billy Patterson?" Yonkers sounded Dutch. Morristown had a plebeian air.