d unsteadily upon the myriad of crowding bodies underfoot, or, as
space was cleared, sank almost waist deep into the mass that leaped and
squirmed about them. Blindly, furiously, they struck and struck. The
Anglo-Saxon spectators round about drew back in disgust, but the hot,
degenerated blood of Portuguese, Mexican, and mixed Spaniard boiled up
in excitement at this wholesale slaughter.

But only a few of the participants of the drive cared to look on. All
the guests betook themselves some quarter of a mile farther on into the
hills.

The picnic and barbecue were to be held around the spring where
Broderson Creek took its rise. Already two entire beeves were roasting
there; teams were hitched, saddles removed, and men, women, and
children, a great throng, spread out under the shade of the live oaks. A
vast confused clamour rose in the air, a babel of talk, a clatter of
tin plates, of knives and forks. Bottles were uncorked, napkins and
oil-cloths spread over the ground. The men lit pipes and cigars, the
women seized the occasion to nurse their babies.

Osterman, ubiquitous as ever, resplendent in his boots and English
riding breeches, moved about between the groups, keeping up an endless
flow of talk, cracking jokes, winking, nudging, gesturing, putting his
tongue in his cheek, never at a loss for a reply, playing the goat.

"That josher, Osterman, always at his monkey-shines, but a good fellow
for all that; brainy too. Nothing stuck up about him either, like Magnus
Derrick."

"Everything all right, Buck?" inquired Osterman, coming up to where
Annixter, Hilma and Mrs. Derrick were sitting down to their lunch.

"Yes, yes, everything right. But we've no cork-screw."

"No screw-cork--no scare-crow? Here you are," and he drew from his
pocket a silver-plated jack-knife with a cork-screw attachment. Harran
and Presley came up, bearing between them a great smoking, roasted
portion of beef just off the fire. Hilma hastened to put forward a huge
china platter.

Osterman had a joke to crack with the two boys, a joke that was rather
broad, but as he turned about, the words almost on his lips, his glance
fell upon Hilma herself, whom he had not seen for more than two months.

She had handed Presley the platter, and was now sitting with her back
against the tree, between two boles of the roots. The position was a
little elevated and the supporting roots on either side of her were
like the arms of a great chair--a chair of