him, and a stealthy figure glided from it. He at once recognized it as
"Jim," a well-known drunken Indian vagrant of the settlement--tied
to its civilization by the single link of "fire water," for which he
forsook equally the Reservation where it was forbidden and his own camps
where it was unknown. Unconscious of his silent observer, he dropped
upon all fours, with his ear and nose alternately to the ground like
some tracking animal. Then having satisfied himself, he rose, and
bending forward in a dogged trot, made a straight line for the woods.
He was followed a few seconds later by his dog--a slinking, rough,
wolf-like brute, whose superior instinct, however, made him detect the
silent presence of some alien humanity in the person of the Editor, and
to recognize it with a yelp of habit, anticipatory of the stone that he
knew was always thrown at him.

"That's cute," said a voice, "but it's just what I expected all along."

The Editor turned quickly. His foreman was standing behind him, and had
evidently noticed the whole incident.

"It's what I allus said," continued the man. "That boy and that Injin
are thick as thieves. Ye can't see one without the other--and they've
got their little tricks and signals by which they follow each other.
T'other day when you was kalkilatin' Li Tee was doin' your errands I
tracked him out on the marsh, just by followin' that ornery,
pizenous dog o' Jim's. There was the whole caboodle of 'em--including
Jim--campin' out, and eatin' raw fish that Jim had ketched, and green
stuff they had both sneaked outer Johnson's garden. Mrs. Martin may TAKE
him, but she won't keep him long while Jim's round. What makes Li foller
that blamed old Injin soaker, and what makes Jim, who, at least, is a
'Merican, take up with a furrin' heathen, just gets me."

The Editor did not reply. He had heard something of this before. Yet,
after all, why should not these equal outcasts of civilization cling
together!

*****

Li Tee's stay with Mrs. Martin was brief. His departure was hastened by
an untoward event--apparently ushered in, as in the case of other
great calamities, by a mysterious portent in the sky. One morning an
extraordinary bird of enormous dimensions was seen approaching from the
horizon, and eventually began to hover over the devoted town. Careful
scrutiny of this ominous fowl, however, revealed the fact that it was a
monstrous Chinese kite, in the shape of a flying dragon. The spectacle
i