"Steady, Onnie!"

"I'm speakin' soft. Himself 's not able to hear," she said, her eyes half shut. She rocked slowly on the amazing feet. "Give me a pistol, your Honor. I 'll be for sleepin' outside his door this night."

"You'll go to bed and keep your door open. If you hear a sound, yell like perdition. Send Bill in here. Say I want him. That's all. There's no danger, Onnie; but I'm taking no chances."

"We'll take no chances, your Honor." She turned away quietly, and Rawling shivered at this cool fury. The rattles made his spine itch, and suddenly his valley seemed like a place of demons. The lanterns circling on the lawn seemed like frail glow-worms, incredibly useless, and he leaned on the window-pane listening with fever to the rain.

"All right," said Bill when he had heard. "'Phone the sheriff. The man's dangerous, sir. I doctored a cut he had the other day, and he tells me he can see at night. That 's a lie, of course, but he's light on his feet, and he 's a devil. I've seen some rotten curs in the hospitals, but he 's worse."

"Really, Billy, you sound as fierce as Onnie. She wanted a gun."

The handsome young man bit a lip, and his great body shook.

"This is San," he said, "and the men would kill any one who touched you, and they 'd burn any one who touched San. Sorry if I'm rude."

"We must n't lose our heads." Rawling talked against his fear. "The man 's drunk. He'll never get near here, and he 's got four miles to come in a cold rain. But-"

"May I sleep in San's room?"

"Then he 'll know. I don't want him to, or Ling, either; they 're imaginative kids. This is a vile mess, Billy."

"Hush! Then I'll sleep outside his door. I will, sir!"

"All right, old man. Pete's room. can sleep in 'phone Mackintosh."

Thanks. Ling Now I'll

But the sheriff did not answer, and his deputy was ill. Rawling shrugged, but

when Varian telephoned that there were thirty men searching, he felt more comfortable.

"You 're using the wires a lot, Dad," said Sanford, roaming in. "Anything wrong? Where 's Ling to sleep?"

"In Pete's room. Good night, Godson. No, nothing wrong."

But Sanford was back presently, his eyes wide.

"I say, Onnie 's asleep front of my door and I can't get over her. What 's got into the girl?"

"She 's worried. Her snake's bells are going, and she thinks the house 'll burn down. Let her be. Sleep with me, and keep my feet warm, Sonny."

"Sure," yawned Sanford. "Night, Billy."

"Well," said Bill, "that settles that, sir. She'd hear anything, or I will, and you 're a light sleeper. Suppose we lock up as much as we can and play some checkers?"

They locked the doors, and toward midnight Cameron rapped at the library window, his rubber coat glistening.

"Not a print of the wastrel loon, sir; but the lads will bide out the night. They 've whusky an' biscuits an' keep moving.'

"I'll come out myself," Rawling began, but the smith grunted.

"Ye 're no stirrin' oot yer hoos, Robert Rawling! Ye're daft! Sin you met this ganglin' assassinator, wha' 'd be for maister? San 's no to lack a father. Gae to yer bit bed!"

"Gosh!" said Bill, shutting the window, "he's in earnest. He forgot to try to talk English even. I feel better. The hog 's fallen into a hole and gone to sleep. Let's go up."

"I suppose if I tell Onnie San 's with me, she 'll just change to my door," Rawling considered; "but I'll try. Poor girl, she 's faithful as a dog!"

They mounted softly and beheld her, huddled in a blanket, mountainous, curled outside Sanford's closed door, just opposite the head of the stairs. Rawling stooped over the heap and spoke to the tangle of blue-shadowed hair.

I 'm-" The rattles

"Onnie Killelia, go to bed." "Leave me be, your Honor. Sleep cut the protest. sounded feebly, and Rawling stood up. "Just like a dog," whispered Bill, stealing off to a guest-room. "I'll leave my door open." He patted the revolver in his jacket and grinned affectionately. "Good night, Boss."

Rawling touched the switch inside his own door, and the big globe set in the hall ceiling blinked out. They had decided that, supposing the cockney got so far, a lightless house would perplex his feet, and he would be the noisier. Rawling could reach this button from his bed, and silently undressed in the blackness, laying the automatic on the bedside table, reassured by all these circling folk, Onnie, stalwart Bill, and the loyal men out in the rain. Here slept Sanford, breathing happily, so lost that he only sighed when his father crept in beside him, and did not rouse when Rawling thrust an arm under his warm weight to bring him closer, safe in the perilous night.

The guest-room bed creaked beneath Bill's two hundred pounds of muscle, and Ling snored in Peter's room. Rawling's nerves eased on the mattress, and hypnotic rain began to deaden him, against his will. He saw Percival sodden in some ditch, his knife forgotten in brandy's slumbers. No shout came from the hillside. His mind edged toward vacancy, bore back when the boy murmured once, then he gained a mid-state where sensation was not, a mist.

HE sat up, tearing the blankets back, because some one moved in the house, and the rain could be heard more loudly, as if a new window were open. He swung his legs free. Some one breathed heavily in the hall. Rawling clutched his revolver, and the cold of it stung. This might be Onnie, any one; but he put his finger on the switch.

"Straight hover-hover the way it was," said a thick, puzzled voice. "There, that one! 'Is bloody barth!"

The rattles whirred as if their first owner lived. Rawling pressed the switch.

"Your Honor!" Onnie screamed. "Your Honor! Master San! Be lockin' the door inside, Master San! Out of this, you! You!"

Rawling's foot caught in the doorway of the bright hall, and he stumbled, the light dazzling on the cockney's wet bulk hurling itself toward the great woman where she stood, her arms flung cruciform, guarding the empty room. The bodies met with a fearful jar as Rawling staggered up, and there came a crisp explosion before he could raise his hand. Bill's naked shoulder cannoned into him, charging, and Bill's revolver clinked against his own. Rawling reeled to the stair-head, aiming as Bill caught at the man's shirt; but the cockney fell backward, crumpling down, his face purple, his teeth displayed.

"In the head!" said Bill and bent to look, pushing the plastered curls from a temple. The beast whimpered and died; the knife rattled on the planks.

"Dad," cried Sanford, "what on-"

"Stay where you are!" Rawling gasped, sick of this ugliness, dizzy with the stench of powder and brandy. Death had never seemed so vile. He looked away to the guardian where she knelt at her post, her hands clasped on the breast of her coarse white robe as if she prayed, the hair hiding her face.

"I'll get a blanket," Bill said, rising. "There come the men! That you, Ian?"

The smith and a crowd of pale faces crashed up the stairs.

"God forgie us! We let him by-the garden, sir. Alec thought he-"

"Gosh, Onnie!" said Bill, "excuse me! I'll get some clothes on. Here, Ian-" "Onnie," said Sanford, in the doorway-"Onnie, what 's the matter?"

As if to show him this, her hands, unclasping, fell from the dead bosom, and a streak of heart's blood widened from the knife-wound like the ribbon of some very noble order.

MRS. FISKE allowed me to escort her

RS. FISKE allowed me to escort her

to the play. It was one afternoon in New York when she herself was not playing, and she was fired with a desire to watch with her own eyes a fairly celebrated actor who was filling one of our theaters at the time. If he were all they said of him, she had a tremendous program of plays planned, all unbeknown to him, for his immediate future. So we talked of him as we settled back in the shadow of an upper box to wait for that expectant hush when, as Mr. Leacock says, the orchestra "boils over in a cadence and stops," when the house grows suddenly dark, the footlights spring to life, and at last the curtains part. Which was naïve of us, for this was in New York, and there is no hush; only the clatter of unblushing late arrivals mingling pleasantly with the chatter of an audience which had brought its manners from the movies.

Mrs. Fiske was comfortable in what she fondly believed was the incognito afforded by a sheltering hat and an impenetrable veil; but had you been peering down from the last row in the gallery, I do not see how you could have failed to recognize her. One glimpse of those alert and extraordinarily characteristic shoulders, the sight, perhaps, of a familiar hand uplifted eloquently to score a point, and you would have known as well as I that Becky Sharp had come to see the play. But she was unaware of your scrutiny from the gallery; in fact, I doubt if there was any gallery. Her all-consuming interest at the moment was the star of the after

noon.

"Does he know his business?" she wanted to know. "He does? Has he vitality? Sometimes I wonder which is the more important. So many of these younger actors seem half asleep. Has he dignity? Most important of all, has he

distinction? What a priceless asset for the actor or actress, distinction of manner and personality! Three of the most gifted of our younger actresses are without it. It is too bad. It is heart-breaking. Each possesses strong dramatic instinct, great intelligence, charm, humor, emotional understanding; but each is utterly without the 'grand manner.' No matter how earnestly they aspire and work, they can never become commanding figures in the theater. That is," she added doubtfully, "unless distinction can be acquired. I wonder if it can be. Once a very clever, experienced, and splendidly trained young actress played a certain ingénue part with us. She had acting to her finger-tips, but she lacked the wonderful something her rather amateur successor possessed in a high degree. When the successor took the place, it was as if a rose had suddenly blossomed into the play. Distinction that was it. Has our friend of this afternoon distinction?"

I refused to commit myself. I rather thought he did have dignity, considerable of it.

"He is terribly in earnest," I confided, "and I have a sneaking suspicion it grieves him inexpressibly that his art is only for the hour, and cannot live to tell the tale when he is gone."

Her eyes began to twinkle mutinously at that.

"You cannot mean it," she protested. "Do actors really fret about that any more? Did they ever? I suppose they did. At least they said a good deal about it. I remember a delightfully melancholy bit on the subject in Cibber."

And out of her inexhaustible memory she gave me in tones of mock solemnity these stately words, set down long ago. by that famous actor, critic, dramatist, and annalist of the stage, Colley Cibber: