"Tain't no use," said Jude, feebly; "corpses don't count for much in
Californy."

"But your immortal part," remonstrated the parson, trying to seize Jude
by the hand which held little Johnny.

"God hev mercy on it!" whispered the dying man; "it's the fust time He
ever had an excuse to do it."

Strong man and expert swimmer as the ex-minister was, he was compelled
to relinquish his hold of the wounded man; and Jude, after one or two
fitful struggles against his fate, drifted lifeless down the stream and
into eternity, while the widowed mother regained her child. The man of
God, the chivalrous Frenchman and the brutish Mike slowly returned to
their camp; but no one who met them could imagine, from their looks,
that they were either of them anything better than fugitives from
justice.

A LOVE OF A COTTAGE.

We had been married about six months, and were boarding in the most
comfortable style imaginable, when one evening, after dinner, Sophronia
announced that her heart was set upon keeping house. _My_ heart sank
within me; but one of the lessons learned within my half year of married
life is, that when Sophronia's heart is set upon anything, the protests
I see fit to make must be uttered only within the secret recesses of my
own consciousness. Then Sophronia remarked that she had made up her mind
to keep house in the country, at which information my heart sank still
lower. Not that I lack appreciation of natural surroundings. I delight
in localities where beautiful scenery exists, and where tired men can
rest under trees without even being suspected of inebriety. But when any
of my friends go house-hunting in the city, in the two or three square
miles which contain all the desirable houses, their search generally
occupies a month, during which time the searchers grow thin, nervous,
absent-minded, and uncompanionable. What, then, would be _my_ fate,
after searching the several hundred square miles of territory which were
within twenty miles of New York. But Sophronia had decided that it was
to be--and I,

"Mine not to make reply;
Mine not to reason why;
Mine but to do or die."

By a merciful dispensation of Providence, however, I was saved from the
full measure of the fate I feared. Sophronia has a highly imaginative
nature; in her a fancy naturally ethereal has been made super-sensitive
by long companionship of tender-voiced poets and romancers. So when I
bought a railway guide and read over the nam