He had been asleep when the door was burst open. The man whom he had killed had fired the shot. He had kept his feet to strike one blow with the axe, and the other man had sprung upon him as he fell.

The doctor did what little he could to ease his patient, and then went away, but soon returned with some men from the village, who were quite ready to lynch the criminal when they heard what he had done. They took the man away, however, and I am happy to say he afterward received the heaviest sentence the law would allow. He confessed that, knowing the chief had a large sum in his possession, himself and his companion had broken the lock of the rifle, intending to waylay the old man and shoot him in the woods. They had not, however, been able to overtake him till he reached the clearing, and then, fearing to encounter him, they had followed him at a distance and watched him enter our house. Knowing that the captain was gone, they had waited until all was quiet, and then made their entrance as described.

The Panther asked that some one might go to the reservation and send over three of his friends, whom he named. He was very anxious to see Wyanota, and Calvin Bruce, who had come with the doctor, instantly volunteered to take his trotting mare and do both errands. The chestnut did her work gallantly, though unhappily in vain, for the old man did not live to see his friends.

"Don't you fret, you two," he said, softly, as Minny and I watched over him. "Great deal the best way for old Ingin. Die like a man now: not cough myself to death, like an old dog. Minny, little girl, you tell your husband be good to our people, well as he can. Not much of our nation left now-not good for much, either," he added; "but you tell him and the captain stand their friends, won't you?"

"Indeed, indeed they will," said Minny in tears.

A Methodist clergyman of some kind, who preached in Maysville at that time,

hearing what had happened, came in to offer his services and to pray with the dying man. The Panther thanked him courteously, but he clung to the simple creed of his fathers and his belief that "Ingin religion was good for Ingin;" and Mr. Lawrence had the sense and feeling not to disturb him by argument.

"Want your Charley to have my rifle," he said to me. "Nobody left of our people but my cousin's son, and he most a mizzable Ingin. You 'member that, please," he said to Mr. Lawrence, who sat quietly at the head of the sofa. "Do you think," he asked wistfully of the clergyman, "that I ever see these two again where I go?" The minister -Heaven bless him!-answered stoutly that he had not a doubt of it. "All right, then," said the Panther, quietly. "Now, mamma, you see red fox know, after all."

Minny brought her baby for him to kiss. Little Carry's dark eyes were full of tears, for, like most babies, she felt the influence of sorrow she could not understand. She did not scream, as another child would, but hid her face on her mother's bosom and sobbed quietly, like a grown-up woman. My two little boys, understanding all at once that their old friend was going away, burst out crying.

"Hush! hush!" he said, gently. "You be good boys to your mother. Say 'good-bye.'"

We kissed him, keeping back the lamentations which we knew would trouble him.

"Good-bye," he said, softly, and then he spoke some few words in his own tongue, as Minny told me afterward, about going to his lost children. Then a smile came over his face, a look of sweet relief and comfort softened the stern features, the hand that had held mine so close slowly relaxed, and with a sigh he was gone.

The old minister gently closed his eyes. "My dear," said Mr. Lawrence to Minny, who was in an agony of grief, "God knows, but it was His Son who said, 'Greater love hath no man than

this-that a man lay down his life for his friends!'"

When we buried the old chief we wrote those words on the stone we placed over his grave.

Since then the New Year's Eve brings back to me very vividly the memory of the augury that so strangely accomplished its own fulfillment.

CLARA F. Guernsey.

MY

Y cousin, Benjamin Duffy, was many years my senior. I had just left school when business called him to France and England. My father thought this a good opportunity for me to see a little of the world before entering upon the serious duties of life, and so sent me abroad with Ben. The latter could not speak a word of French, while I had studied it for many years, and thought I should have no trouble about the language.

We reached Paris on Christmas Eve. An American, Mr. Wilson, with whom my cousin had business relations, had engaged apartments for us, to which we drove from the station. We were to dine with him the next day.

On Christmas morning Ben said he felt too tired to go out with me, but that I needn't stay in to keep him company: he should lie in bed until time to dress for dinner, and would meet me at Mr. Wilson's. We were to take our meals at restaurants, and he said that he would get his breakfast somewhere when he wanted it. I started out to get mine. At the door of our little salon there stood some one who spoke to me in French. I couldn't tell, at the first glance, whether it was a man or a woman, owing to the face and head being masculine-looking, and the body being covered with a long, narrow, tightlyfitting black alpaca dress. He or she carried a large market-basket on his or her arm, with a single loaf of bread in it.

"It must be a man," I thought, "because women wear hoops and petticoats,

and this creature has neither;" and the light just then happening to shine through his skirt, I saw he wore kneebreeches and stockings.

But what was it he kept on saying to me? I couldn't make it out. I did really know a good deal of French as it is written, but it seemed another language when spoken familiarly. He ran his words together, so that they sounded like one immensely long word: besides, I had in my own mind mapped out what I should say to people-that I would invariably address them first, and so get just the replies I expected, and could therefore comprehend. I had never calculated on any one's speaking to me first, and was consequently unprepared and bewildered. When he stopped a moment for breath, I stammered out, "Bang!" I meant "bien," but my French teacher had always told me I pronounced the word wrong.

The Frenchman smiled, which confused me more than ever, and I couldn't think of a single sentence, either to ask him what he meant or to explain my own ignorance of his language.

It seemed to dawn upon him, at last, that I didn't understand; and to give me a clew he took the loaf of bread out of the basket and pointed to it. This was a clew indeed!

"It's the baker," I said to myself; so, wrought up to desperation by his volubility and my inability to answer him, I snatched the loaf out of his hand and shut the door quickly, leaving him in the entry. A pause, and then he began

talking louder and faster, and rattling and knocking at the door.

"Who's that making all that rumpus?" asked Ben from under the bed-clothes. "The baker, with a loaf of bread. Where shall I put it?"

"On the floor, or anywhere you like: it's a matter of indifference to me."

But it proved afterward not to be of indifference to him.

After a while the jabbering and thumping ceased outside, and I heard heavy footsteps go clattering down the stone steps.

"The coast's clear," said I, peeping

out.

"Tom!" called Ben. "Well ?"

"Tell that man in the hencoop down stairs-porter fellow-what d'ye call him?"

Concierge."

"Kongsheares—not to let the fire go out, or I shall freeze."

"All right!" I said, and went whistling down to the porter's room, congratulating myself that I now had an opportunity of putting my own theories of speaking French into practice. To this man I would speak first, so directing the conversation and obtaining understandable answers. It was as good as the first move in chess. Emboldened by my advantage, and assuring myself that that harassing baker was nowhere near, I loftily remarked to the concierge, "Do not let the fire go out up stairs." "Good God!" he cried, starting, "is there a fire up stairs?"

That's what I thought he said, wondering how Frenchmen could be so theatrical in their ways, jumping and staring and swearing over such a commonplace order as not to let the fire go out. But perhaps he thought the whole house was on fire; so, to reassure him, I said, "Yes-only a fire in the bed

French ways, so unused to bed-room fires. Why, he couldn't have looked more astounded if I had told him that we made a bonfire nightly of New York, and found it still intact, phoenix-like, in the morning.

"A fire in the bed-room always!" he reiterated, as if unable to credit his hearing. "How dangerous!"

"Yes: don't let it go out, on any account"

"I'll take care of that! Do you see that arm, that muscle? It won't go out, except over my dead body!"

He clenched his fist, and I walked away proudly. Had I not always felt sure that if I only got the first word I could understand any Frenchman alive, even the baker? But what demonstrative people! how they get up their enthusiasm over trifles! The fire shouldn't go out except over his dead body! Why, a man going into battle could say no more than that. Anyhow, he would keep Ben warm.

He did.

I sauntered around Paris, first going to the Madeleine to hear mass. I was delighted with this lovely city, so different from any I had ever seen before, and I never gave a thought to Cousin Ben until I found myself at Mr. Wilson's, a few minutes before the dinner hour. He greeted me with great cordiality. After a few commonplace remarks he said, "I hope we shall see your cousin to-day."

"Why, isn't he here?" I inquired, for the man-servant had just announced dinner.

"No."

"It's strange! He said he would

meet me here."

"Perhaps he has forgotten, in sightseeing, how time goes."

"No, that's not it, for he was not well to-day and stayed at home. He is usually so punctual that this delay makes me uneasy. Hadn't I better go

and see what's the matter?"

"Oh no: we can't spare you both. He may join us before dinner's over. If not, I'll send to see what has befallen him."

And with an apology for not being able to keep his guests waiting any longer for Ben, Mr. Wilson led the way to the dining-room.

There was a large party of people assembled, principally Americans, all in a right merry mood to enjoy a good old-fashioned Christmas dinner. Every one had wondrous tales of travel to tell; and my neighbor, a very far backwoodsman, laughingly told me that he had been a year in France, and until this dinner he had eaten nothing but ham. I asked him how that had happened. He said, from knowing only one word of French, jambon (ham); so he could ask for nothing else, and ham or starvation stared him in the face. He intended that night to eat a good square mealenough, in fact, to last him till he got home.

Every man and smiling woman seemed so light-hearted that “dull care" had begoned, as people in the old song "pritheed" him to do. With me alone I thought he tarried, for in the midst of all the festivity I was secretly fidgeting about Cousin Ben. Why didn't he come? where was he? could he be sick? But for these conjectures I could have been as jovial as the rest.

As we were rising from dinner a footman came in and whispered something to Mr. Wilson, who quietly laid his hand on my arm, signifying I was to remain after the others had left the room. Now, though Ben was full twenty years older than myself, I wouldn't have had anything happen to him for all the greenbacks in the Treasury.

"Prepare yourself for bad news," said Mr. Wilson when we were alone. "My cousin," I faltered-" sick?" "Worse!"

"Not-dead?" "No-worse!"

"What can be worse than that?" "Gone mad!"

I was aghast, but laughed constrainedly: "That's impossible. I left him as sane as you are, this morning." "That may be, but madness often develops itself very suddenly, and in

the last persons we think likely to end that way."

"I'll go at once to him."

"I'll go with you. It wouldn't be safe for you to go alone, as John here says that the concierge told him he had been very violent all day, raving and struggling so that he had to lock him in, to prevent his bursting into the

streets."

I waited for no more news, but seizing my hat rushed into the street, shouted for a hack, bounded into it, and with Mr. Wilson at my side tore along as if I had been a madman myself.

Arriving at the house, I glanced in at the porter's lodge, the "hencoop," as poor crazy Cousin Ben had called it. An old woman dozed before the fire, and just opened her eyes as I scampered up stairs, three steps at a time, guiding Mr. Wilson.

Before the door of our little apartment of four "pieces" (as our French friends have it) the concierge was pacing up and down like a stern sentinel at his midnight post with the enemy's pickets within range. He wiped his forehead, dripping with perspiration, and on seeing me cried out with his usual "sensation" voice, "Thank Heaven, you've come at last! I wouldn't pass such another day, not for five thousand francs! My Christmas spoiled, to say nothing of being nearly driven mad guarding this fearful lunatic! He's strong too, though he is old; and but for this brave muscle," giving his arm a resounding slap, "he'd have got out in spite of me. He's too much, though, for one single keeper, young gentleman: you had better clap him into the asylum and be done with it."

"Into the asylum!" I echoed, fairly bewildered.

"Who's that?" asked my cousin from inside. "Is that you, Tom?"

Hearing his voice, I breathed more freely. It didn't sound crazy, and the question was perfectly rational. "Yes, and Mr. Wilson."

"Thank Heaven, you've come at last!"

Now that was exactly what the porter

had said, only one spoke in French, the other in English, and neither understood the other.

"Come in, do, if you can coax the key from that crazy ruffian outside: don't force it, for he's too strong for you, the wild beast! My life's been in danger all day. Come in, somehow, for the love of Heaven!"

Mr. Wilson looked what people incorrectly call thunderstruck. But thunder don't strike: it's the lightning that attends to the pugilistic part. He asked the porter for the key, which he instantly handed him, with the remark that he had better go in too, for fear the crazy man might kill us; so, three to one, we marched in.

There sat Ben, with his evening shirt showing signs of a tussle. His shirt was torn open, and his cravat lay in two pieces on the floor. The shreds of a pair of white kid gloves were flung on the table beside the remains of the very same loaf of bread which the baker had left in the morning.

"I must beg you, Mr. Wilson," said Ben, with the urbanity which distinguished him when sane, "to accept my regrets and apologies for not being present at your hospitable dinner and merry-making to-day, as I had hoped to be. You see by my dress-the disorder of which, I trust, you will excuse, as I had not expected your most timely visitthat I had prepared myself to come, but was prevented by this man from going out. On opening the door I found him parading up and down — as it proved, mounting guard over me! He said something which I did not understand, not being so fluent in the language as my young cousin. Instead of explaining, he jabbered away till I got tired of listening - I was a little late anyhow and tried to pass him. He immediately seized me very roughly, and hurled me with brute force back into this room. In the scuffle which followed I was worsted, I am ashamed to say. At last, when I was too exhausted to struggle any more, he rushed out and locked me in; and here I've been in close confinement ever since!

Now, either he is a dangerous lunatic or an agent of the police. If the latter, I can prove that I am a most peaceable American citizen, here in France on my own private business, with no inimical intentions toward the emperor; but I will have ample satisfaction for this rough handling and solitary confinement. Though I should be loth to acquire notoriety, yet the liberty of the subject must not be tampered with, even by despots, and I will make the tyrant tremble on his rotten throne, with the whole United States at my back, for I too am a sovereign!"

Ben was a remarkably reticent man, and seldom strung more than half a dozen words together at a time; so, when I heard him deliver this long harangue in an excited way, flourishin his hands about, I sorrowfully concluded that he had found his tongue and lost his head, as the Frenchman alleged.

What with the alarm and surprise, all the little French I knew flew out of my memory; so Mr. Wilson was obliged to interpret for me as well as the belligerents. He turned to the porter: "This gentleman says you prevented his going out."

"I did," proudly.

My cousin broke in, testily: "But why? Why should I, of all the strangers in Paris, be selected by him to be kept in confinement? On Christmas Day, too!"

"Be calm, Ben!" I said, soothingly, not wanting him to have another attack. "Calm! the d-1! I'll take it out of his hide yet!"

Poor Ben! The elegance of his diction was rapidly deteriorating with loss of mind.

Mr. Wilson, loquitur: "He says because he's an old soldier, must obey orders, and was charged not to let you go out except over his dead body."

"How fond he is of his dead body!" I thought.

"Why, why did that ruffian lock me in?"

Friend interpreting: "Because that was the only way to keep you in. You