une. Sam heard him
without remark, and then put on his hat, and taking pick and shovel,
asked Tom to show him the mine. Arriving there, he shovelled up some of
the ore which Tom had seen, and disclosed quite a different rock below.
On this lay a piece of board, which he handed to Tom, who read thereon,

"u ar sold bad u yung tender-fut this aint no mine."

For a moment he did not understand; then came a shock of disappointment,
and then a sense of indignation, not so much against the men who had
deceived him as at himself for his delusion and stupidity.

Sam looked kindly at him. "Pretty rough on you, Tom, wasn't it?" he
said. "Why, my boy, this is an old claim of mine, which I gave up long
ago as no good. They've just gone and salted it--I mean, put some good
ore in to deceive you. So they walked off with your ten dollars, the
miserable scamps! Tell me what they looked like."

Tom described them.

"Ho! ho!" said Sam. "I saw those same fellows taking the train for
Denver. I'm going down there to-morrow, and the Chief of Police is a
friend of mine. Perhaps we'll run across them some day."

As they walked home, he tried to cheer Tom up by telling him stories of
clever men who had been served in similar ways; but Tom was sober, not
on account of his loss, but because it had come to his mind how foolish
he had been from the first. He felt easier when he had told his father
the whole story.

The latter laughed heartily, and said, "Well, Tom, my boy, considering
how badly you had the mining fever, I do not think that ten dollars was
a large price to pay for a cure."

* * * * *

Some time after Tom had returned to his home he received a letter from
Colorado, which proved to be from his friend Sam, reading partly as
follows:

"... I am glad to tell you that we catched them two claim-jumpers [men
who steal claims]. They'd spent all your stamps, sure enough, and you
won't never see them no more; but it's a comfort that they got two years
at Canyon City [where the penitentiary is]. Better luck next time. Come
out again next summer, and I'll help you find an A1 mine...."

But Tom says that if he ever has any money at all, it will be earned in
some good old-fashioned way; that he is not a "tender-foot," and that he
does not want any more interest in prospect holes.

WOLF-CHILDREN.

BY JAMES GREENWOOD.

Some years ago a soldier stationed at Bondee, in India, while passing
near