"A man."

"What's the matter?"

"Starving."

"Where are the others ?"

Dumphy cast a suspicious glance at him and said:

"Who?"

"The others. You are not alone?" "Yes, I am!"

"How did you get here?" "What's that to you? I'm here and starving. Gimme suthin to eat and drink."

He sank exhaustedly on all fours again. There was a murmur of sympathy from

the men.

"Give him suthin. Don't you see he can't stand-much less talk. Where's the Doctor ?"

And then the younger of the leaders thus adjured:

"Leave him to me-he wants my help, just now, more than yours."

He poured some brandy down his throat. Dumphy gasped, and then staggered to his feet.

"What did you say your name was?" asked the young surgeon, kindly.

"Jackson," said Dumphy, with a defiantly blank look.

"Where from?" "Missouri."

"How did you get here?"

66

Strayed from my party."

"And they are—”

"Gone on.

Gimme suthin to eat!"

"Take him back to camp and hand him over to Sanchez. He'll know what to do," said the surgeon to one of the men. "Well, Blunt," he continued, addressing the leader, "you're saved-but your nine men in buckram have dwindled down to one-and not a very creditable specimen at that," he said, as his eyes followed the retreating Dumphy.

"I wish it were all, Doctor," said Blunt, simply; "I would be willing to go back now. But something tells me we have only begun. This one makes everything else possible. What have you there ?”

One of the men was approaching holding a slip of paper with ragged edges as if torn from some position where it had been nailed.

"A notiss-from a tree. Me no sabe," said the ex-vaquero.

"Nor I," said Blunt, looking at it, "it seems to be in German. Call Glohr."

A tall Swiss came forward. Blunt handed him the paper. The man examined it.

"It is a direction to find property-important and valuable property-buried."

"Where ?"

"Under a cairn of stones."

The surgeon and Blunt exchanged glances.

"Lead us there!" said Blunt.

It was a muffled monotonous tramp of about an hour. At the end of that time they reached a spur of the mountain around which the cañon turned abruptly. Blunt uttered a cry.

Before them was a ruin-a rude heap of stones originally symmetrical and elevated, but now thrown down and dismantled. The snow and earth were torn up around and beneath it. On the snow lay some scattered papers, a portfolio of drawings of birds and flowers; a glass case of insects broken and demolished, and the scattered feathers of a few stuffed birds. At a little distance lay what seemed to be a heap of ragged clothing. At the sight of it the nearest horseman uttered a shout and leaped to the ground.

It was Mrs. Brackett, dead.

CHAPTER VII.

IN WHICH THE FOOT-PRINTS BEGIN TO FADE. SHE had been dead about a week. The features and clothing were scarcely recognizable; the limbs were drawn up convulsively. The young surgeon bent over her attentively.

"Starved to death?" said Blunt, interrogatively.

The surgeon did not reply, but rose and examined the scattered specimens. One of them he picked up and placed first to his nose and then to his lips. After a pause, he replied quietly.

"No. Poisoned."

The men fell back from the body.

"Accidentally, I think," continued the surgeon, coolly; "the poor creature has been driven by starvation to attack these specimens. They have been covered with a strong solution of arsenic to preserve them from the ravages of insects, and this starving woman has been first to fall a victim to the collector's caution."

There was a general movement of horror and indignation among the men. "Shoost to keep dem d-n birds," said the irate Swiss. "Killing women to save his cussed game," said another. The surgeon smiled. It was an inauspicious moment for Dr. Devarges to have introduced himself in

person.

"If this enthusiastic naturalist is still liv- | ing, I hope he'll keep away from the men for some hours," said the surgeon to Blunt, privately.

"Who is he?" asked the other.

"A foreigner-a savant of some note, I should say, in his own country. I think I have heard the name before-Devarges," replied the surgeon, looking over some papers that he had picked up. "He speaks of some surprising discoveries he has made, and evidently valued his collection very highly."

"Are they worth re-collecting and preserving?" asked Blunt.

"Not now!" said the surgeon. "Every moment is precious. Humanity first, science afterward," he added lightly, and they rode on.

And so the papers and collections preserved with such care, the evidence of many months of patient study, privation, and hardship, the records of triumph and discovery, were left lying upon the snow. The wind came down the flanks of the mountain and tossed them hither and thither as if in scorn, and the sun already fervid, heating the metallic surfaces of the box and portfolio, sank them deeper in the snow, as if to bury them from the sight forever.

By skirting the edge of the valley where the snow had fallen away from the mountainside, they reached in a few hours the blazed tree at the entrance of the fateful cañon. The placard was still there, but the wooden hand that once pointed in the direction of the buried huts had, through some mischance of wind or weather, dropped slightly and was ominously pointing to the snow below. This was still so deep in drifts that the party were obliged to leave their horses and enter the cañon a-foot. Almost un

consciously, this was done in perfect silence, walking in single file, occasionally climbing up the sides of the cañon where the rocks offered a better foothold than the damp snow, until they reached a wooden chimney and part of a roof that now reared itself above the snow. Here they paused and looked at each other. The leader approached the chimney and leaning over it called within.

There was no response. Presently, however, the cañon took up the shout and repeated it, and then there was a silence broken only by the falling of an icicle from a rock, or a snow slide from the hill above. Then all was quiet again, until Blunt, after a moment's hesitation, walked around to the opening and descended into the hut. He had scarcely disappeared, as it seemed, before he returned, looking very white and grave, and beckoned to the Surgeon. He instantly followed. After a little, the rest of the party, one after another, went down. They staid some time, and then came slowly to the surface bearing three dead bodies. They returned again quickly and then brought up the dissevered members of a fourth. This done, they looked at each

other in silence. "There should be another cabin here ?" said Blunt, after a pause.

"Here it is," said one of the men, pointing to the chimney of the second hut.

There was no preliminary "halloo," or hesitation now. The worst was known. They all passed rapidly to the opening and disappeared within. When they returned to the surface they huddled together a whispering but excited group. They were so much pre-occupied that they did not see that their party was suddenly increased by the presence of a stranger.

To know how to live is a profound and subtle science, and no other subject of equal importance can be presented for our consideration. The knowledge of those means that prolong life, the most precious boon of Heaven, far beyond the limit which experience has declared for the race, is indeed a study of absorbing interest.

Some authorities assert that longevity may be made to depend upon human prudence; that a man who ordinarily could not be expected to attain seventy or eighty years may reach one hundred. There is no doubt that prudence in living contributes to length of days, yet the laws of development, maturity and dissolution, are too well fixed, and have been so for thousands of years, to admit of the belief that man can of his own volition—that is, by means of this particular diet or that school of training, attain readily to great age.

Authorities on vital statistics, such as Lord Bacon, Flourens, Hufeland, Buffon, and others, have contributed valuable information on this subject; yet their pages read like an Eastern romance, so interwoven do we find valuable counsel and superstitious belief. Lord Bacon thought that some art for prolonging life was known to the ancients, and, having been lost, is recoverable. A writer in the "Encyclopedia Britannica" has suggested that the antediluvians restored their vital powers by occasionally partaking of the "Tree of Life," as the Homeric gods fed on ambrosia. Buffon was of the opinion that in early times the earth was less solid and compact than it now is, and that gravitation only partially operated; there was, therefore, not the same limit to man's increase of stature, and the consequent postponement of the period of maturity led to a postponement of the period of decay; as men were longer growing, they had also to be longer alive. These were the times referred to in Genesis vi. 4: "There were giants on the earth in those days." Then there have been those who have written about the "Three Ages of the World." The first, when the world was to be peopled by one man and one woman, extended from the Creation to the Flood, when men lived to be nine hundred and beyond. The second period, from the Flood to the death of Abraham, witnessed a great reduction in man's age, and Shem appears as the extreme

The

type, he living six hundred years. third period followed the death of Abraham, and reached to the days of the Psalmist. From one hundred and ten to one hundred and eighty then seemed the measure of life. But, notwithstanding the authority of the Ninetieth Psalm has been the rule since the periods referred to, there have been credulous ones who, a few hundred years ago, readily accepted the statement that men and women, during the later centuries of the Christian era, had reached three hundred years; and a Portuguese author had the hardihood to tell of a native of Bengal, Numas-de-Cugna by name, who died in 1566, at the incredible age of three hundred and seventy years.

Attempts have been made to build up theories aiming at the prolongation of life. Some have dwelt upon climatic influences alone; others have prescribed just the diet suitable for each period of life from the cradle to the close of a century of existence. M. Flourens states that the length of life is a multiple (five) of the length of growth. This period of growth usually terminates when the bones become united to their epiphyses. Then, assigning twenty years for such a period, he argues that one hundred years is a normal limit of life. Experience has declared that an active, even a fatiguing life, during the first half of a man's days, is conducive to longevity; but that in the latter half his existence should be peaceful and uniform. Cornaro, an Italian nobleman and a centenarian, who died in 1566, stated that a man of fifty years had attained only half his age. This author became a writer of repute on vital statistics, and in his work entitled "Birth and Death of Man," among some of the causes of longevity he refers to divine sobriety" in these words:

"It is pleasing to God, friendly to nature, the daughter of Reason, the sister of Virtue. From this root spring life, health, cheerfulness, bodily industry, mental labor, and a well-disciplined mind. From it, as clouds from the sun, fly repletions, indigestions, gluttonies, superfluities, humors, fevers, distempers, griefs, and every ill of human flesh."

No authority seems so worthy of attention as Abernethy. He says: "In your food restrict yourself to quantity rather

than quality; eat slowly, drinking at the close of the meal; eat of the most palatable dish first, and but one kind of meat. Atten

The Olde Old very Olde Man or Thomas Par. the Same of Tom Pam of winnington in the Parth of Alberbury In the County of Shrop hire who Was Borne in 14,85 in The Raigne of King Edward the 4th and is now living in The Strand being aged 152 yeaves and odd Monethes/635 tion to diet, air, exercise, mental tranquillity, and not medicines, contribute to the preservation of health and the prolongation of life."

But our venerable friends themselves testify that the diet of old age ought in some degree to return to that of the early periods of life-such as soups, liquid food, and materials of the most digestible character. They use but little beef or pork, tea or coffee, butter or cheese. They commend asparagus, potatoes, mutton, poultry, and fish. John Wilson, who lived to be one hundred and sixteen, for forty years supped on roasted turnips. Fontenelle, the distinguished scholar, who died in 1757, aged one hundred, used to say every spring, when attacked by the fever, "If I can only hold out until strawberries come in, I shall get well." These old folks suggest wine and malt liquors, for the reason that the vital powers require an artificial stimulus. The aged, are, however, often liable to ludicrous fancies, and in their garrulous testimony we observe that one attributed rare merit to the VOL. XI.-3.

fact that he had eaten a newly laid egg daily for many years; another ate bread and butter thickly spread with sugar; some frequently chewed citron bark, saffron, or opium; and yet others fought off the evil day by saturating themselves with tobacco. or some similar narcotic. Even Lord Bacon discussed the merits of anointing with "that golden oyle, a medicine most marvelous to preserve men's health." But, by all authorities, honey has been esteemed the "juice of life," and carries far more merit than the fabled fountain of youth and beauty, which Ponce de Leon sought in vain. Many aged philosophers, and, among them, Democritus, Pythagoras, and Pliny, trace their length of days to the use of oil without and honey within. Two persons in modern times are mentioned as having lived to the ages of 108 and 116, who, during the last half century of their lives, for their breakfast took only a little tea, sweetened with honey.

But where shall men dwell, and be able to find the five score years and beyond? What countries are supposed to be most favorable to longevity? This matter

cannot satisfactorily be determined. Only a perfect system of statistics, kept for centuries, would disclose the secret. Tables have been published, but they cannot be verified. Lord Bacon, in his "History of Life and Death," quotes from Pliny the following lively statistics : "The year of our Lord seventy-six is memorable; for, in that year there was a taxing of the people by Vespasian; from which it appears that in the part of Italy lying between the Appenines and the River Po, there were found fifty-four persons 100 years old; fifty-seven, 110 years; two, 120 years; four, 130 years; four, 135 years; and three, 140 years each." Now leave sunny Italy and go to inclement Norway. Travelers have there remarked the great temperance, industry, and morality of the people, and their common food is found to be milk, cheese, dried or salt fish, no meat, and oat bread baked in cakes. enumeration of the inhabitants of Aggerhus, in Norway, in 1763, showed that one hundred and fifty couples had been married over 80 years: consequently the greater number were aged 100 or more; seventy couples had been married over 90 years, which would place their ages at about 110; twelve couples had been married from 100 to 105 years, and another couple 110 years,

An