branch was purely a receptive one. Old
ladies interested in the science bothered you some with long reports
of proceedings of their historical societies. Some twenty or thirty
people would write you each year that they had secured Sam Houston's
pocket-knife or Santa Ana's whisky-flask or Davy Crockett's
rifle--all absolutely authenticated--and demanded legislative
appropriation to purchase. Most of the work in the history branch
went into pigeon-holes.

One sizzling August afternoon the commissioner reclined in his
office chair, with his feet upon the long, official table covered
with green billiard cloth. The commissioner was smoking a cigar, and
dreamily regarding the quivering landscape framed by the window that
looked upon the treeless capitol grounds. Perhaps he was thinking of
the rough and ready life he had led, of the old days of breathless
adventure and movement, of the comrades who now trod other paths or
had ceased to tread any, of the changes civilization and peace had
brought, and, maybe, complacently, of the snug and comfortable camp
pitched for him under the dome of the capitol of the state that had
not forgotten his services.

The business of the department was lax. Insurance was easy.
Statistics were not in demand. History was dead. Old Kauffman,
the efficient and perpetual clerk, had requested an infrequent
half-holiday, incited to the unusual dissipation by the joy of
having successfully twisted the tail of a Connecticut insurance
company that was trying to do business contrary to the edicts of the
great Lone Star State.

The office was very still. A few subdued noises trickled in through
the open door from the other departments--a dull tinkling crash from
the treasurer's office adjoining, as a clerk tossed a bag of silver
to the floor of the vault--the vague, intermittent clatter of a
dilatory typewriter--a dull tapping from the state geologist's
quarters as if some woodpecker had flown in to bore for his prey in
the cool of the massive building--and then a faint rustle and the
light shuffling of the well-worn shoes along the hall, the sounds
ceasing at the door toward which the commissioner's lethargic back
was presented. Following this, the sound of a gentle voice speaking
words unintelligible to the commissioner's somewhat dormant
comprehension, but giving evidence of bewilderment and hesitation.

The voice was feminine; the commissioner was of the race of
cavaliers who make salaam before t