rench was concerned, and Irma's
pauses left a deepening shadow upon her face. When the letter was
done, she said: "Is it not good to hear of Kalman doing so well?
Tell him he can do something for me. He can grow up a good man, and
he can help Jack to be--" But here her loyal soul held her back.
"No, don't say that," she said; "just tell him I am glad to know he
is going to be a good man. There is nothing I want more for those
I love than that. Tell him too," she added, "that I would like him
and Jack to help Mr. Brown all they can," and this message Irma
wrote to Kalman with religious care, telling him too how sad the
dear sweet face had grown in sending the message.

But when Mrs. French reached her home, she read again parts out of
the letter which the same mail had brought her from the Night Hawk
Ranch, read them in the light of Kalman's letter, while the shadows
deepened on her face.

"He is a strange little beggar," she read, "though, by Jove, he
is little no longer. He is somewhere about sixteen, is away past
my shoulder, and nearly as strong as I am, rides like a cowboy,
and is as good after the cattle as I am, is afraid of nothing,
and dearly loves a fight, and, I regret to say, he gets lots of it,
for the Galicians are always after him for their feasts. He is a
great singer, you know, and dances much too well; and at the feasts,
as I suppose you know quite well, there are always fights. And here
I want to consult you. I very nearly sent him back to you a little
while ago, not for his fault, but, I regret to say, for mine. We went
to a fool show among the Galicians, and, I am ashamed to say, played
the fool. There was the deuce of a row, and Mackenzie and I were
in a tight box, for a dozen or so of our Galician friends were
determined upon blood. They got some of mine too, for they were
using their knives, and, I am bound to say, it looked rather serious.
At this juncture that young beggar, forgetting all my good training
in the manly art, and reverting to his Slavic barbaric methods of
defence, went in with a hand-spike, yelling, and, I regret to say,
cursing, till I thought he had gone drunk or mad. Drunk, he was not,
but mad,--well, he was possessed of some kind of demon none too
gentle that night. I must acknowledge it was a good thing for us,
and though I hate to think of the whole ghastly business, it was
something fine, though, to see him raging up and down that room,
taunting them for cowards, hurli