n him
once before, peacefully at rest. But a greater sacrifice than that he
had known was here, and his generous heart was stilled forever.

"He was honest and brave," said the old man, and turned away. There
was another figure in the room; a heavy shawl drawn over her graceful
outline, and her long black hair hiding the hands that buried her
downcast face. I did not seem to notice her, and, retiring presently,
left the loving and loved together.

When we were again beside the crackling fire, in the shifting shadows
of the great chamber, Altascar told me how he had that morning met the
horse of George Tryan swimming on the prairie; how that, farther on, he
found him lying, quite cold and dead, with no marks or bruises on his
person; that he had probably become exhausted in fording the creek, and
that he had as probably reached the mound only to die for want of that
help he had so freely given to others; that, as a last act, he had freed
his horse. These incidents were corroborated by many who collected
in the great chamber that evening--women and children--most of them
succored through the devoted energies of him who lay cold and lifeless
above.

He was buried in the Indian mound--the single spot of strange perennial
greenness which the poor aborigines had raised above the dusty plain. A
little slab of sandstone with the initials "G. T." is his monument,
and one of the bearings of the initial corner of the new survey of the
"Espiritu Santo Rancho."

AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN

In 1858 Fiddletown considered her a very pretty woman. She had a
quantity of light chestnut hair, a good figure, a dazzling complexion,
and a certain languid grace which passed easily for gentle-womanliness.
She always dressed becomingly, and in what Fiddletown accepted as the
latest fashion. She had only two blemishes: one of her velvety eyes,
when examined closely, had a slight cast; and her left cheek bore a
small scar left by a single drop of vitriol--happily the only drop of
an entire phial--thrown upon her by one of her own jealous sex, that
reached the pretty face it was intended to mar. But when the observer
had studied the eyes sufficiently to notice this defect, he was
generally incapacitated for criticism; and even the scar on her cheek
was thought by some to add piquancy to her smile. The youthful editor of
THE FIDDLETOWN AVALANCHE had said privately that it was "an exaggerated
dimple." Colonel Starbottle was instantly "rem