To Lucien Killowill's mind the world was going entirely too smoothly with Piney Cridle. It was high time that there should be injected into the general chorus of adulation some little discordant note that would bring the young man to a sense of the hollowness of riches. Solomon Holloberger had been completely crushed and was sitting in silence, wiggling one foot very vigorously and chewing a match-stick, so in his gloomy mood he did not make an attractive butt for the old man's cutting humor. Andrew's high spirits were proof against any attack. Piney, in the glory of his derby and Prince Albert, tilted back on two legs of his chair carelessly twirling a fine cigar; Piney, in the full of that great white light the rich so love to have beat upon them, offered a very large mark for ammunition such as Killowill had stored in his narrow head.

"Mebbe you haven't heard about Pet," began the old man, blocking the cobbler's quest of information.

"About Pet?" Piney's chair came down on all four legs. "What about Pet?"

"She's likely to marry Harmon Barefoot," answered Lucien, rubbing his hands. Piney swung back against the counter and took a long puff. "Is that all?" he drawled. "Ain't it enough?" cried Killowill. "Why, they've been settin' up regular all winter, him and her. He's give her an accordine." "I wish 'em happiness," said Piney cheerfully. "It's a pity she couldn't do better than Harmon Barefoot, though, fer she's a pretty girl, she is, an' there was a time when I might 'a' married her myself. But Harmon is one of them fellers that'll never have nothin' unless it's willed to him." This contemptuous reference to the sonin-law he was likely to have, angered Killowill. He climbed to his feet and thumped the floor with his cane, and tried to unburden his feelings in words. For the moment words would not come. In his anger

he dropped his cigar and tramped on it, which served further to enrage him.

"See here, Piney Cridle," he began. Piney was on his feet.

"Take another se-gar," he said, "an' don't git all he't up, Lucien. I was only joshin'. Tell Harmon that when they're married he can have my cow. Tell Pet I'll send 'em a nice cut-glass water-pitcherdo you hear-tell her that. You might tell her I'd 'a' called to-day only I was drivin'

through on my way to Pleasantwille an' stopped longer than I had otter-tell her that." Piney pulled on one of the yellow gloves and lighted another cigar. "Tell her I hope she'll marry Harmon," he added.

With that he left them. From the sidebar buggy he waved the derby, held in a gloved hand. The glossy trotter swung into her stride, and in a moment scurried around the bend at the end of the village.

Hardly a week passed till Piney Cridle came again to Tuscarora. He came in his old mackinaw jacket and coon-skin cap this time. He came a foot, and found Amos Pinking alone in the store.

"Where's the boys?" he asked, tossing on the counter a large bundle wrapped in newspapers.

"Where's the cady an' the Prince Albert?" returned Amos, puzzled by the change in his old friend.

Piney tapped the bundle lovingly. "There," he answered. "Don't touch it. You'll wrinkle 'em."

"Where's your trotter?" demanded Amos.

"My trotter!" Piney laughed long and loud. "What made you think I owned a trottin' horse?"

“Well, if it wasn't you-unsez, whose was it?" cried Amos angrily.

Some minutes passed before Piney could speak. He sat down and rubbed his face in his coon-skin cap, and rocked to and fro in his chair.

"That mare belonged to my boss," he said at last.

Slowly the store-keeper backed out from his post behind the counter, until he stood menacingly over the gleeful Cridle.

"Your boss!" he exclaimed. "I thought you had a mine."

"Whoever sayd I had a mine?" Piney retorted. "You never heard me say I had a mine."

Amos thought a minute, and then shock his head very slowly.

"I mind now, you didn't," he admitted. "But the money an' the se-gars?"

"I worked all last winter in a sawmill.” "Mighty souls!" With this heart-born exclamation Pinking sat down on the bench and stared at his friend.

"Where's the boys?" demanded Piney. "Where's Lucien, an' Preacher Holloberger, an' all them ?"

"Diggin' gold," was the solemn answer. Piney drew a cigar from his pocket and lighted it. "This here's jest a plain penny one," he explained. "I've give up luxuries." Pinking's head was wagging ominously. "I s'pose they've gone to Snyder County," said Piney, after a long silence.

66

'Right," Amos answered. "They started the day after you was here-the whole of 'em. Andrew Rickaback had laid out to open up his property adjoinin' yours, an' Solomon, havin' sold his tract, started a general prospectin' firm with the idee of findin' a vein an' buyin' an' operatin' on shares." "Who's in the firm ?" inquired the other softly.

"They called it Holloberger, Killowill, an' Barefoot."

"Poor fellers, poor fellers!" murmured Piney. He arose, and stepping to the door took his post by the sentinel oil-cloth rolls. "Think of 'em, Amos; think of 'em-their clearin's choked up with weeds; their cows wanderin' loose around the roads. S'pose they does find a mine-is it worth it? Is it worth all them days of diggin' an' diggin'? Is it worth all them wet Aprile nights over in the mountains? Is it worth it, I says?" "You'd otter quit your joshin', Piney Cridle," cried Amos angrily; "you done it -you know you did."

Amos," Piney answered, "you never was drove outen the store be scorn an' sermons, was you? You mind that day when they all laughed so at me? You-uns thought I didn't feel it. You-uns thought

Piney Cridle was a poor simple-minded fool, didn't you? That's the way I felt myself, an' I stopped down there on the bridge to stedy it over. As I was stedyin' I happened to look up, an' there in the second-story winder was Pet Killowill apeekin' at me. I knowd Harmon Barefoot was settin' in the kitchen. You otter 'a' seen Pet Killowill then, as I seen her, a-lookin' my way so sorrowful. It was time I was up an' doin'. I'd rather have her than all the gold in Snyder County, says I, Amos. An' I took jest one long look, an' then I waved my hand an' set out fer the mountain. All last winter when you an' Lucien an' the Preacher pictured me adiggin' an' diggin', I was gittin' a dollar a day in a sawmill. Now I'm back agin. I come in a side-bar buggy, but it was my boss's, an' I was takin' it down to the big walley fer him. I come in a cady hat an' a Prince Al-bert because I bought 'em fer my weddin'. There they are now-in that bundle. Mebbe you wouldn't mind keepin' 'em fer me awhile, till I run down an' see Pet. Poor girl! left all alone while her pap an' Harmon goes a-huntin' gold. Mebbe I'll run up to the clearin' an' open the house, an' then slip over to Barefoot's an' git my cow."

Piney turned to the door and went whistling out. At the steps he halted.

"Amos," he called back, "mebbe tomorrow you'll go with me to the mountains to gather in a few of them brands from the burnin'."

WR

E reached Samarcand on a beautiful warm April morning. The day before, we had spent ten weary hours kicking our heels together on the station platform at Bokhara, waiting for a little Transcaspian railroad train which, so we were told, was having a duel with a sandstorm off in the desert. But even when she did finally come in, brown and gritty from the encounter, we were loath to climb aboard and bid farewell to the wonders of that dirty barbaric city and its people. During the whole of our ten days' visit Bokhara had been decked in her gala clothes, celebrating the entrance of the year of the Hegira 1322 with a huge festival. We had accordingly been able to see the natives at their best

and rarest—that is, at play. The bachas, or dancing boys, had been supplied from the Emir's own contingent; the wrestlers had been the most powerful and expert of all in their profession; the candy-makers had surpassed each other in the variety of their concoctions of sweetened flour. The tomtoms had been beaten, and the dervishes had howled, and the Bokharans had thrown themselves into all the fun, more vigorously than they would at any other season of the year.

To the novelty of all this we thought to say good-by at the Bokhara station. But as a matter of fact, New Year's Day seems to be a very elastic institution in Central Asia, and we were not thoroughly past it for

sport of the natives, and probably the most exciting of all national games, was to be played.

All the morning, as we roamed about among the wonderful blue-tiled ruins of mosques and colleges in the public square, we noted signs of preparation for it. The crowds sitting in the tea-booths were obviously not composed of the usual merchants who seek a moment's refreshment and rest from the turmoil of the bazaar; for in the neighborhood of each booth were tethered as many horses as the booth had occu

pipes; one pipe, incidentally, being the common property of each group.

These dust-stained travellers were a few of the participants of the game-relatively a very few, for the Asiatic substitute for polo is played on a gigantic scale. prospective onlookers were equally conspicuous. Broken-down droskies, which, after a long period of usefulness in Russia, were seeking in Central Asia their final resting-place, rattled hither and thither, their turbaned drivers shouting, beseeching, squabbling, for one more passenger.