project, replied, as it seemed, with all the heat of a Borderman. The two almost came to blows and soon it was announced that Benbow had been dismissed from his situation.

After this the Forester wore the appearance of a man overtaken with misfortunes, vowed vengeance against Trusty at the taps of public houses, and even had the art to ingratiate himself into the favor of the earl expectant, Bushwig, who became a patron and a sympathizer, promising to reinstate the old man in his position when the suit at law should be decided. Roger then broke up his housekeeping, disposing of goods and chattels at a vendue; and now it began to be hinted that he was little better than a bankrupt, having embarked his savings in some disastrous foreign speculation. Gossips complained that it was shameful for the executors to turn out an old retainer of the family, after so many years of faithful service in a post which his father and grandfather had held before.

Shunned by many of his former acquaintance, who beheld in him but a discarded follower, he affected shabbiness in his appearance. When, one day, it was announced that, in company with the whipper-in, he had started off to try his fortune in the colonies, it was a nine days' talk in the neighborhood, and then almost forgotten.

Warily journeying from point to point, in the States and Canadas, ostensibly engaged at one time in smuggling upon the lines, then busied as the keeper of an obscure public house for Old Countrymen in one of the great entrepots on the sea-board, taking care that none should suspect his purpose, four years elapsed, during which after every expedient the gipsy still had eluded all search. At last, when fortune seemed to fail, affecting a loose morality and little regard for law, suspicious characters began to harbor about his premises, and then, after many a carouse, the desired information was obtained;-Chivers was in California.

More wary than ever, he began to talk "gold" as if a fever of adventure was upon him. Once more disposing of the "Pewter Mug," good will, lease and furniture, still with the follower at his beck, jostling across the Isthmus, and aided on by many a hint gathered up from thieves and burglars, he landed at San Francisco. Now habited and employed as miners, the two journeyed from place to place, fortunate to find at last a certain clue to the man of whom they were in search, and tracked him finally to the remote locality of Feather River. This morning, as he beheld the tent of the villain and his associates the old man's heart kindled with all its youthful fire. What though the fox had doubled and the scent failed, though two oceans had successively been placed between the animal and his pursuers? what though the grizzled hairs had grown gray in the search and the wrinkles knotted themselves like strands of whipcord on the visage? This was his hiding place.

Cautiously moving forward, with sagacity redoubled now that the search of five long years seems coming to an issue, the Forester reconnoiters, nor does he long continue before discovering that the sandy plain is broken by a sudden and deep ravine. Stealing now like an Indian who scents an enemy, creeping upon the ground, as the sun mounts toward the meridian voices in sharp and sudden conversation are evidently near at hand. Gaining a point of advantage where he can scan the deep gulch without danger of being observed, his eye takes in the villains, who, standing closely together, and hidden from the river by a jutting rock, peer out from time to time toward the remote bar, and then handle their weapons as if the time moved slowly while they awaited a coming victim.

Moving still nearer to the scene, with eye that takes in both land and water, a solitary miner upon the sand bar attracts the Forester's eye. The good glass which is carried within the folds of the doublet reveals the treasure seeker,

now making his last dive, then emerging from the water, then with straining nerves rolling the great nugget to the center of the islet, then gathering together in a heap around it what appear at this distance to be stones of all sizes, then resting his head for a moment upon the spade or contemplating the mound, and at last committing himself once more to the wild stream between the sand bar and the hither shore. Now too, while the wader is still in the shallows or cautiously venturing where the rapid currents shoot between, the glass is turned toward the rogues ensconced in ambush. It needs but one sharp, scrutinizing look to reveal the face of the gipsy.

Roger Benbow is concealed behind a boulder on the narrow path, which all must take, ascending from the ravine and the river to the table land. As he closes the telescope the trio part. Chivers saunters up this way and will soon pass within arms' length. The weapon which he bears is a revolver, and see, he is cautiously ramming down the barrels and carefully examining that the powder fills the nipples; now he has replaced the caps;-now he approaches within a few feet;-now passes by and shirks behind the face of a projecting angle of the cliff. The sharp click indicates that the weapon is cocked and ready for a shot. Benbow can even hear the deep breathing of the brawny chest, so near are they together.

Restraining his every movement; keeping back as much as possible the respiration; all eye, all ear, all nerve for what shall come next, the Forester now beholds the dripping miner emerging from the stream and faltering up the pathway like one exhausted with the morning's toil; while, lazily sauntering in the same direction, each with jacket upon the arm, puffing apparently from fatiguing labor and the heat of the sun, and seeming to wipe the perspiration from their brows, the gipsy's two confederates accost the man who is to die; bantering him at his folly in leaving the ravine.

where the precious ore is to be had for the digging, and risking life in prospecting on those shifting sandbars.

The distance narrows. It is twenty feet;-now ten ;now, with brisker steps, leaving Bulwinkle to lag in the rear, and wishing him better success in his next venture, they pass the ledge, behind which Chivers lies in wait. Another instant, and still with dripping garments trailing water as he moves, steadying himself for an instant against the rock, within a ramrod's length of the muzzle of the unseen weapon, the honest fellow takes breath.

With unerring aim the pistol opens its deadly chambers, so near now that the sweaty ooze, like a mist, from the doomed man's dripping locks, lies on the steel-blue barrel

with a delicate spray. Then the nervous finger of the gipsy touches the spring. The weapon explodes.-Stunned, blackened, while the old rocks ring with echo after echo, the victim has fallen, and slow, trickling blood oozes from his temples.

What sharp blow of a spade struck up that rifled barrel just as the hammer was falling on the cap, dashing it, as the weapon exploded, beyond the villain's reach and out of sight? What iron, decisive voice is this which shouts, at the turn of the rocks which the trio have agreed shall be Phil Bulwinkle's death chamber and burial-place, "Avast there! Man to man!" And now what sturdy, stalwart, weather-beaten frame is this, that, better armed, stands over the apparently dead or dying miner? The English foxhound and the gipsy fox have met at last.

Was or was not that sudden spade-thrust a thousandth part of a minute too late? and did that leaden death messenger whiz harmlessly and spend itself in blue air or bore a passage through the brain? Drop by drop the blood trickles where the gory temple shows a crimson stain, and half the face is blackened by the powder, while, lying there like tears that the heart wept as the spirit fled without a

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moment's warning into the presence of its God, the great, red splashes purple against the begrimed countenance.— Falling with his face upward, the man lies now with brawny chest exposed; and see! while the features work convulsively, as if the nerves, disturbed in this hasty manner, were slowly contracting to their final repose, a little volume which has been carried in the folds of the shirt, thrown from its hidingplace by the jar and the fall, is exposed half open against the quivering chest. One might read upon that page, which turns its faded letters against the sun, such words as these:

"Take no thought for your life. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you."

Stand here, oh, prophet of chance and blind necessity; man of the smooth tongue, skilled in argument from the mere appearances of things. Take the gory temples and the blood-bedabbled face of this poor victim and argue from them that 'God helps the heavy battalions;' argue from them that the shrewd eye, the hard heart, the plotting brain and the dead conscience carry with them strength and victory. It is the fool's, the madman's reasoning, world over, and timid men of a faint half-goodness more than incline to it. Reason, from this tragic scene, that our world is given up to the dominion of the men who act in the wisdom of self-love, and live with no supreme regard to the great law of service. Appearances are in your favor. Give the lie to that burning, that consoling sentence which bespeaks a Father's care for even the frail body and its mortal wants. Yours shall be an innumerable congregation to applaud and pronounce the demonstration perfect at the close.

But English Peter is not dead. The thousandth part of a minute was not lost. The spade struck opportunely. True, the temples bleed where the sharp rocks left their imprint as he fell. True, the sudden shock has brought faint