arr was your
friend! Take your choice. You go on down, Pringle, while the sheriff
is looking over the relative advantages of the two propositions. I
think Miss Vorhis may have something to say to you."

* * * * *

She came to meet him; Foy and the Major waited by the horses. "John!"
she said. "Faithful John!" She sought his hands.

"There now, honey--don't take on so! Don't! It's all right! You know
what the poet says:

"Cast your bread upon the waters
And you may live to say:
'Oh, how I wish I had the crust
That once I threw away!'"

Her throat was pulsing swiftly; her eyes were brimming with tears,
bruised for lost sleep.

"Dearest and kindest friend! When I think what you have done for
me--that you faced shame worse than death--guarded by unprovable
honor--John! John!"

"Why, you mustn't, honey--you mustn't do that! Why, Stella, you're
crying--for me! You mustn't do that, Little Next Door!"

"If you had been killed, taking Chris--or after you gave him up--no
one but me would have ever believed but that you meant it."

"But you believed, Stella?"

"Oh, I knew! I knew!"

"Even when you first heard of it?"

"I never doubted you--not one instant! I knew what you meant to do.
You knew I loved him. The led horse was for you. I thought Chris would
be gone. Why, John Wesley, I have known you all my life! You couldn't
do that! You couldn't! Oh, kiss me, kiss me--faithful John!"

But he bent and kissed her hands--lest, looking into his eyes, she
should read in the book of his life one long, long chapter--that bore
her name.

THE END

THE COME ON

"_Fair fellow, said Sir Ector, knowest thou not
in this country any adventures that be here nigh
hand? Sir, said the forester,... strike upon
that basin with the butt of thy spear thrice, and
soon after thou shalt hear new tidings, and else hast
thou the fairest grace that many a year had ever
knight that passed through this forest_.... _Then
anon Sir Ector beat on the basin as he were wood_."

Chapter I

"_Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go_!"

Steve Thompson had sold his cattle. El Paso is (was) the Monte Carlo
of America. Therefore--The syllogism may he imperfectly stated, but
the conclusion is sound. Perhaps there is a premise suppressed or
overlooked somewhere.

Cash in hand, well fortified with paving material, Thompson descended
on the Gat