s bonnet and
shawl, and marshalled down-stairs with the band.

"Ready," said Amanda.

"Ready," said Herr Schwartz to his musicians. "Go a leedle easy mit der
Allegro, or we bust 'Fatinitza.'"

The spirited strains were lifted in Siskiyou, and the procession was
soon at the jail in excellent order. They came round the corner with the
trombone going as well as possible. Two jerking bodies dangled at the
end of ropes, above the flare of torches. Amanda and her flock were
shrieking.

"So!" exclaimed Herr Schwartz. "Dot was dose Healy boys we haf come to
gif serenade." He signed to stop the music.

"No you don't," said two of the masked crowd, closing in with pistols.
"You'll play fer them fellers till you're told to quit."

"Cerdainly," said the philosophical Teuton. "Only dey gif brobably very
leedle attention to our Allegro."

So "Fatinitza" trumpeted on while the two on the ropes twisted, and grew
still by-and-by. Then the masked men let the band go home. The Lyceum
had scattered and fled long since, and many days passed before it
revived again to civic usefulness, nor did its members find comfort from
their men. Herr Schwartz gave a parting look at the bodies of the
lynched murderers. "My!" said he, "das Ewigweibliche haf draw them apove
sure enough."

Miss Sissons next day was walking and talking off her shock and
excitement with her lover. "And oh, Jim," she concluded, after they had
said a good many things, "you hadn't anything to do with it, had you?"
The young man did not reply, and catching a certain expression on his
face, she hastily exclaimed: "Never mind! I don't want to know--ever!"

So James Hornbrook kissed his sweetheart for saying that, and they
continued their walk among the pleasant hills.

THE GENERAL'S BLUFF

The troops this day had gone into winter-quarters, and sat down to kill
the idle time with pleasure until spring. After two hundred and forty
days it is a good thing to sit down. The season had been spent in
trailing, and sometimes catching, small bands of Indians. These had
taken the habit of relieving settlers of their cattle and the tops of
their heads. The weather-beaten troops had scouted over some two
thousand aimless, veering miles, for the savages were fleet and mostly
invisible, and knew the desert well. So, while the year turned, and the
heat came, held sway, and went, the ragged troopers on the frontier were
led an endless chase by the hostiles, who took them back