and Queen along. He went up the hill and came to bay on the top of the cliffs, where we could see him against the skyline. The hounds surrounded him, but neither they nor Turk came to close quarters. Queen, however, as soon as she arrived rushed straight in, and the cougar knocked her a dozen feet off. Turk tried to seize him as soon as Queen had made her rush; the cougar broke bay, and they all disappeared over the hilltop, while we hurried after them. A quarter of a mile beyond, on the steep hill-side, they again had him up a pinyon-tree. I approached as cautiously as possible so as not to alarm him. He stood in such an awkward position that I could not get a fair shot at the heart, but the bullet broke his back well forward, and the dogs seized him as he struck the ground. There was still any amount of fight in him, and I ran in as fast as possible, jumping and slipping over the rocks and the bushes as the cougar and dogs rolled and slid down the steep mountain-side-for, of course, every minute's delay meant the chance of a dog being killed or crippled. It was a day of misfortunes for Jim, who was knocked completely out of the fight by a single blow. The cougar was too big for the dogs to master, even crippled as he was; but when I came up close Turk ran in and got the great beast by one ear, stretching out the cougar's head, while he kept his own

forelegs tucked way back so that the cougar could not get hold of them. This gave me my chance and I drove the knife home, leaping back before the creature could get round at me. Boxer did not come up for half an hour, working out every inch of the trail for himself, and croaking away at short intervals, while Nellie trotted calmly beside him. Even when he saw us skinning the cougar he would not hurry nor take a short cut, but followed the scent to where the cougar had gone up the tree, and from the tree down to where we were; then he meditatively bit the carcass, strolled off, and lay down, satisfied.

It was a very large cougar, fat and heavy, and the men at the ranch believed it was the same one which had at intervals haunted the place for two or three years, killing on one occasion a milch cow, on another a steer, and on yet another a big work horse. Goff stated that he had on two or three occasions killed cougars that were quite as long, and he believed even an inch or two longer, but that he had never seen one as large or as heavy. Its weight was 227 pounds, and as it lay stretched out it looked like a small African lioness. It would be impossible to wish a better ending to a hunt.

The next day Goff and I cantered thirty miles into Meeker, and my holiday was

over.

F the many events in the somewhat tumultuous career of my friend, Major Pemberton Jones, there are two which belong together. Both have to do with high finance. There are, you know, high finance, plain, every day finance, and highway robbery.

The Major's specialty was high finance. Not always did it pay, but to this he stuck through many reverses, ever building new argosies from the wrecks of stranded hopes. A scheme whose probable profits he could not write with six figures before the decimal was too paltry for his consideration.

It was an experiment in high finance which took the Major so far away as the republic of-well, there are a lot of little federations down in South and Central America. This particular one we will call Guanica. The enterprise was nothing short of bribing a few receptive government officials in relation to a grant of rubber forest.

Now, an all-wise providence probably intended the Major's varied talents for other things, but the fact remains that he seemed especially designed for business of this sort. Nature had furnished him with impressive bulk. It had endowed him with such dignity as is instinct in negro porters and acquired by statesmen. It had gifted him with persuasive speech. The Major had done the rest. He had held himself aloof from work of head or hand. Toil he viewed as some lamentable misfortune that might happen to others but could never happen to him.

Because of his gift in the matter of persuasive speech a discerning and not wholly reverent circle of friends were pleased to speak of the Major as "Lubricator" Jones, a nickname of which he did not wholly approve, but which he never took pains to resent.

By the time the Major had found just whose palms to cross in Guanica and had

properly "crossed" them he had distributed some four thousand dollars gold. Then to the trusting speculators who had supplied the funds he jubilantly cabled: "Have greased the ways; launching soon."

The Major was confidently awaiting the promised signatures to certain documents of state when something happened which was not on his programme. A lot of ridiculously uniformed soldiers marched from somewhere into the plaza, fired a few rifle shots, dragged some cannon about and waved some flags. They were joyously received by every Guanican in sight.

"What's it all about?" demanded the Major.

"Why, it's a revolution. Long live Mendez, the Liberator!" said his landlord in the one breath.

And so it was. The Major learned that the men who but the day before had guided the destinies of Guanica were now either in jail or in breathless flight therefrom, while an entirely new set of destiny shapers held forth within the walls of the jimcracky government palace.

Having meditated on these things Major Pemberton Jones went, with no indecent haste, to make inquiry of Mendez, the Liberator, as to the status of his concession. A very small, very dark man with bristling mustaches and unquiet eyes received him with scant courtesy. In his most persuasive tones, and in very faulty Spanish, the Major said some nice things to Mendez, the Liberator, and suggested that he would like his concession signed right away. Incidentally he mentioned that no further attempt at extortion would be successful. In very good Spanish, but in rather explosive tones, Mendez, the Liberator, suggested that Major Pemberton Jones should go to the devil.

Thereupon the Major played his trump. He, the Major, knew his rights. He should stand for them. He asserted that

he was an American citizen with a watchful state department, a great army, and a first-class navy at his back.

This should have wilted the liberator. But it didn't. His unquiet eyes grew still more unquiet, and he gave some sharp, snapping orders. In a remarkably short time Major Jones was hustled before a very impromptu court, and there charged with many grave felonies whose nature he understood but vaguely. From court he was taken to an ill-ventilated but very secure stone prison. It was all quite abrupt.

For twenty-seven unpleasant days the Major was badly treated. Then he was removed to a hospital where they found he had a well-developed case of yellow fever. The nurses were chiefly remarkable for greed, incompetency, and laziness, but the physicians knew how to handle yellow jack. So the Major survived.

Six weeks later an emaciated individual, wearing a faded suit of blue ticking, walked uncertainly up the steps of the government palace and demanded an interview with the dictator of Guanica. The man was what was left of Major Pemberton Jones, whose weight had dropped from 225 pounds to a bare 150. As was quite natural, he looked as if his skin did not fit him.

Through some mistake he was admitted into the august presence of the dictator. . Before he could be stopped he had told about one-third the story of his wrongs. When the small, dark man with the unquiet eyes caught his drift he laughed mirthlessly. Next he banged a bell and there came in a dozen or more energetic guards.

"Take this Yankee pig outside and kick him off the grounds," he said. The order was obeyed with promptness and to the

letter.

Mental poise had always been one of the Major's strong points, but years of self-control could not fit a person for such unusual emergency. Picking himself up out of the white dust of the roadway the Major then and there, to the intense enjoyment of some score of interested loungers, cursed the republic of Guanica in all its several departments, executive, judicial, civil, and military, from top to bottom and back again. Also did he declare the fut

ure business of his life to be the pursuit of vengeance.

On the very face of it this declaration was vain, for there were left to the Major, after contact with Guanicans of high and low degree, neither coin, credit, nor proper raiment. The immediate future contained only dire necessity, but from it was born quick resource.

Walking as one whose way was clear the Major limped to the water-front. There he found a Norwegian tramp steamer which happened to be full of salt hides and short handed below decks. The Major impetuously shipped as stoker.

It is only just to state that the Major had but the most vague conception of a stoker's duties. They are not contemplative. Neither is the stoke-hold of a steamer an attractive place, particularly in tropic seas. During a nightmare existence of unguessed length did Major Pemberton Jones, disciple of high finance, feed mountains of pea-coal into the insatiate maw of a red-mouthed demon.

No clear recollections has he of that period save that with every shovelful he made a new vow, or repeated an old one, concerning his purpose and attitude toward the republic of Guanica. That the hard work and high temperature did not end his existence was a marvel. But it did not. While awake he worked like a fiend, ate what was given him and drank oatmeal water by the gallon. When it was permitted he dropped on the baled. hides in the evil-smelling hold to sleep as one in a trance.

Some strange sights may be seen in the neighborhood of Pier 1, North River, but probably no one ever saw, before or since, a soot-grimed stoker jump ashore, run into the middle of Battery Place and kiss the unresponsive and not always immaculate Belgian blocks. Yet that is what Major Pemberton Jones did. Whether there is any potency for sanity in New York's paving-stones I do not know, but from that moment the Major regained his mental poise.

There ensued for the Major some bitter months. To the men who had coveted Guanica's rubber forests he made brief report of failure unadorned with the story of his personal sufferings. Then he dropped out of sight.

Just what vineyards of endeavor shadowed his paths during that period of disappearance are unknown to me. Into it was packed, I suppose, all the real toil of which Major Pemberton Jones was ever guilty, barring that in the stoke-hold, and there is no doubt that he still feels it the deepest blot on his record as a gentleman and a financier.

One spur there is more effective than ambition. This was supplied to my friend, the Major, when the minions of Guanica's dictator did hurt to his person and violence to his feelings. Now to undertake at forty-eight a climb, from the depths represented by a lodging which you buy at so much per night, to the comfortable heights associated with hotel apartments paid for by the quarter, this is indeed a task. Add to it the wreaking of a private revenge on the executive head of a sovereign republic and you have set a goal for nothing short of genius.

Of those desperate beginnings the Major will say no word. I have guessed at feverish days spent in haunting certain obscure brokers' offices where clerks and messenger-boys may risk the price of a week's luncheons on the rise and fall of stocks. Pony bucket-shops they are called in the metaphor of "the Street," and they serve both as kindergartens and asylums for those who follow the game.

In the end luck must have come to the Major. At any rate, he was seen, on that notable day when X, Y & Z (preferred) shook off the lethargy of months and rose from something like fifty-seven to four points beyond par, to sit, from opening to closing, breaking toothpicks into bits as he watched his little hoard grow like the magic flowers under the wand of the sleight-ofhand performer. Sometimes, but not frequently, this happens.

Next day Major Pemberton Jones reappeared. He took his old rooms at the hotel where he had been for years a fixture, was reinstated at his club, and leased two tiny offices on the eighteenth floor of a new skyscraper.

By many outward signs he was the same "Lubricator" Jones as before. Yet he was much changed. For one thing his dark-brown hair had become almost white. He was stouter than ever and week by week his weight increased. Even the ex

There was On one of

pression of his eyes was new. another thing, though trivial. his stubby fingers blazed balefully, from a heavy chased setting, a green diamond of quite three carats weight.

"It's an investment, not an ornament," explained the Major. "Queer stone? Well, yes. I'll tell you the story some day. The dealers call it El Vengador. That's Spanish, you know, for-well—” The Major thrust a well-kept hand out into the sunlight and allowed the rays to dance among the facets for a moment. "When you see me without it you will understand." "But it is of great

"Doubted," said I. price, this El Vengador?"

'No-and yes. I can get five hundred on it at an hour's notice, but while I wear it the stone stands for something I owe to seven hundred thousand dear friends."

Not knowing the Major's point of view I set this down as mere imagery.

As president of the Montezuma Mining Company (Limited) the Major enjoyed a season of moderate prosperity, during which it was to be noted that he was somewhat uniquely busied in keeping track of South American affairs. I judged this from the journals and government reports with which his desk was burdened.

"When one wears El Vengador what else can you expect?" he would say; which reply, you see, was no reply at all.

Gradually there approached evil days. A suspicious public began to doubt the wonderfully convincing truths elaborately printed in the pamphlets of the Montezuma Mining Company and-here was the rub-to withhold its dollars. Even the curb brokers refused to traffic in such discredited stock. There were base rumors that the Montezuma mine was an unproductive hole in the ground, and that the early dividends had been purely fictitious declarations.

Vainly did Major Jones angle for men with money to invest and confidence in his ability to do the investing. The partial story of his failure in the matter of the Guanican rubber concession was widely spread, and where it went there fell a blight upon all budding assurance as to the financial wisdom of "Lubricator" Jones.