at, I took my coat,
My load I settled fair,
I approached that awful incubus
With an absent-minded air--
And I walked directly through him
As if he wasn't there!"

--_An Obstacle_:
CHARLOTTE PERKINS STETSON.

Johnny Dines rode with a pleasant jingle down the shady street of Los
Banos de Santa Eulalia del Norte. His saddle was new, carven, wrought
with silver; his bridle shone as the sun, his spurs as bright stars; he
shed music from his feet. Jeff saw him turn to Casa Escobar: apple
blossoms made a fragrant lane for him. He paused at Jeff's tree.

"_Alto alli!_" said Johnny. The words, as sharp command, can be managed
in two brisk syllables. The sound is then: "_Altwai!_" It is a crisp and
startling sound, and the sense of it in our idiom is: "Hands up!"

Jeff had been taking a late breakfast _al fresco_; he made glad room on
his bench.

"Light, stranger, and look at your saddle! Pretty slick saddle, too.
Guess your playmates must 'a' went home talking to themselves last
night."

"They're going to kill a maverick for you at Arcadia and give a
barbecue," said Johnny. The cult of _nil admirari_ reaches its highest
pitch of prosperity in the cow-countries, and Johnny knew that it was
for him to broach tidings unasked.

"Oh, that reminds me--how's old Lars Porsena?" said Jeff, now free to
question.

"Him? He's all right," said Johnny casually. "Goin' to marry one or more
of the nurses. They're holdin' elimination contests now."

"Say, Johnny, when you go back, I wish you'd tell him I didn't do it.
Cross my heart and hope to die if I did!"

"Oh, he knows it wasn't you!" said Johnny.

Jeff shook his head doubtfully.

"Evidence was pretty strong--pretty strong! Who was it then?"

"Why, Lake himself--the old hog!"

"If Lake keeps on like this he's going to have people down on him," said
Jeff. "Who did the holmesing--John Wesley?"

"Oh, John Wesley! John Wesley!" said Dines scornfully. "You think the
sun rises and sets in old John Wesley Pringle. Naw; he didn't get back
till it was all over. I cannot tell a lie. I did it with my little
hatchet!"

"Must have had it sharpened up!" said Jeff. "Tell it to me!"

"Why, there isn't much to tell," said Dines, suddenly modest. "Come to
think of it, I had right considerable help. There was a young college
chap--he first put it into my head that it wasn't you."

"That would be t