d bit-chains. * * * The
chief, a six-footer wearing beautifully decorated gauntlets and a pair
of white buckskin _chaps_, went so far as to say it was a little warm
for the time of year.

STEWART EDWARD WHITE,
in _The Mountains._

OCTOBER 30.

HANDS UP!

This is a request that, in the wild and woolly West, "may not be
denied"; and the braver the man is to whom it is addressed, the
quicker does he hasten to comply. Indeed, it would argue the height of
folly if, after a glance into the barrels of a "sawed off," and a look
at the determined eyes behind them, covering your every move, you did
not instantly elevate your hands, and do it with cheerful alacrity.
The plea, "He had the drop on me," will clear you in any frontier
Court of Honor.

A.E. LYNCH,
in _Self-Torture._

OCTOBER 31.

OUT WEST.

When the world of waters was parted by the stroke of a mighty rod,
Her eyes were first of the lands of earth to look on the face of God;
The white mists robed and throned her, and the sun in his orbit wide
Bent down from his ultimate pathway and claimed her his chosen bride;
And He that had formed and dowered her with the dower of a royal
queen,
Decreed her the strength of mighty hills, the peace of the plains
between;
The silence of utmost desert, and canyons rifted and riven,
And the music of wide-flung forests where strong winds shout to
heaven.

* * * * *

Calling--calling--calling--resistless, imperative, strong--
Soldier and priest and dreamer--she drew them, a mighty throng.
The unmapped seas took tribute of many a dauntless band,
And many a brave hope measured but bleaching bones in the sand;
Yet for one that fell, a hundred sprang out to fill his place,
For death at her call was sweeter than life in a tamer race.
Sinew and bone she drew them; steel-thewed--and the weaklings shrank--
Grim-wrought of granite and iron were the men of her foremost rank.

* * * * *

The wanderers of earth turned to her--outcast of the older lands--
With a promise and hope in their pleading, and she reached them
pitying hands;
And she cried to the Old World cities that drowse by the Eastern main:
"Send me your weary, house-worn broods and I'll send you men again!
Lo! here in my wind-swept reaches, by my marshalled peaks of snow,
Is room for a larger reaping than your o'er-tille