get up a little rational explanation. Besides, we neither of us need explanations. We know what has been happening."

"You mean you really doubt my feeling for you? No, Vincent, I still love you,' and her voice had a flute-like quality which, though it was without a trace of conviction, very few people who had ever heard it had resisted.

"I am aware of that," said Vincent quietly.

She looked beautifully dazed.

"Yet this morning you spoke-as if—” "But what is love such as yours worth? A man must be on the crest of the wave to keep it; otherwise it changes automatically into contempt. I don't care about it, Adelaide. I can't use it in a life like mine."

She looked at him, and a dreamlike state began to come over her. She simply I could n't believe in the state of mind of those sick-room days; she could never really, she thought, have been less passionately admiring than she was at that minute, yet the half-recollection confused her and kept her silent.

"Perhaps it 's vanity on my part," he said, "but contempt like yours is something I could never forgive."

"You would forgive me anything if you loved me." Her tone was noble and sincere.

"Perhaps."

"You mean you don't?"

"Adelaide, there are times when a per

son chooses between loving and being loved."

The sentence made her feel sick with fear, but she asked:

"Tell me just what you mean."

"Perhaps I could keep on loving you if I shut my eyes to the kind of person you are; but if I did that, I could not hold you an instant."

She stared at him as fascinated as a bird by a snake. This, it seemed to her, was the truth, the final summing up of their relation. She had lost him, and yet she was eternally his.

As she looked at him she became aware that he was growing slowly pale. He was standing, and he put his hand out to the mantelpiece to steady himself. She thought he was going to faint.

"Vincent," she said, "let me help you to the sofa."

She wanted now to see him falter, to feel his hand on her shoulder, anything for a closer touch with him. For half a minute, perhaps, they remained motionless, and then the color began to come back into his face.

He smiled bitterly.

"They tell me you are such a good sick nurse, Mrs. Farron," he said, "so considerate to the weak. But I don't need your help, thank you."

She covered her face with her hands. He seemed to her stronger and more cruel than anything she had imagined. In a minute he left her alone.

NE year I was up working in the New York Mine, in Sierra County," old Mr. Peters said, "and on a Sunday I thought I'd borrow Bill Hayes's gun and go a-hunting deer on Haskell Peak.

"We did n't have much meat that summer. The mine was paying big, and old man Hayes just naturally hated to take time off to go after it or send anybody. So, as I kind o' thought I was a pretty good shot in them days, I figured to get a deer and surprise all the boys.

"That Haskell country can't be counted

on. Sometimes the deer just crowd you off into the cañons, and sometimes you can hunt all over it and wear yourself out and come home smelling like a bear, yet never get a thing.

"Well, I hunted all the way up there, a matter of maybe five miles, and then I hunted all round the peak, into the gulches and out again, and down over on the big ridge toward the valley. Darned if I could scare up a chipmunk, let alone a buck, like I calculated on. I et my lunch, and worked down the creek and up around the far side of the mountain, going to all the places where I had seen deer afore

or ever heard of deer being, but I never jumped a thing till I was pulling up the top of a little ridge that looked down on Mohawk. Then all of a sudden I see a little tail kind o' whisking round a rock, and I dropped down low and worked up the side, figuring to get a doe, anyway, and take chances on being caught with it. You see, I'd got to talking a good deal to the boys the night afore that, and I knew they'd let me hear of it if I came home with nothing but a story.

"So I clumb around and clumb around, and drug myself over a little ledge, ready for to plug Mr. Deer; and there was one o' Freeman's sheep, waggling that little tail I 'd seen and eating some grass, lonesome-like. It had got lost from one o' the flocks that feed all through that country.

"I was so put out that I raised up and cussed that critter like he was the cause o' everything, and then I got a couple o' rocks and lammed them at him, sort o' to relieve my feelings. The sheep he run off a little way, and then he turned round and said 'Baa-a-a' at me like a baby calling its mother. I guess he was the most forlorn and unhappy sheep you ever see, and he was as tickled to find me sneaking up on him as a prospector is to see the first mail-stage in the spring.

"I was clean disgusted with that sheep, though, 'cause I 'd counted so on him being a deer, and I sat down on a rock and rested awhile, looking off down the Feather River Cañon, away below Blairsden, and thinking I might as well give up and go home. The afternoon was getting old, and it was a long pull up and a long slide down.

"But while I sat there, dog-tired, blamed if that sheep did n't come up and rub against me like a pussy cat, and then he looked up in my face with a lost kind o' look, and he says again 'Baa-a-a.'

"I felt sort o' funny. I'd never been a family man or had children, or nothing, and never did like people or things a-rubbing up against me. And here we was away off together out of sight. I felt kind of foolish, I honest did.

me.

"So I jumped up and said, 'Get out!' and started off toward the mine, and the fool sheep he just trotted right along with Every once in a while he 'd say 'Baa-a-a,' and then he 'd hurry up a little, and try to crowd up and rub against me again, he was that sick for a little company. O' course sheep always run in bunches, you know, and what one does all does, and one sheep off by hisself feels like a flea on top a flagpole.

"As I was saying, I did n't want no sheep or nothing hanging around me, and I left a sort o' trail I was following and worked off among the rocks, figuring on shaking that pest. But it never fazed him a bit; he kept right on over rocks and boulders and all, scrambling up and slipping and sliding down, and every once in a while he let out that 'Baa-a-a' o' his.

"That got me worse than ever, and I tried to dodge round a little clump o' spruce and sneak off; but he came charging and sprawling right through them, and run clear out ahead o' me, then turning round and giving the gladdest 'Baaa-a' you ever hear.

"It just fairly maddened me at the time, and I gave that sheep a kick in the ribs that knocked him over in the brush, and while he was a-rolling down the hill and kicking I turned right around and cut up over the top o' the ridge, and clear round on the other side o' the peak, keeping at it till I could n't run no more. Then I kind o' fell down between two rocks, and was laying there panting, when, lick my boots! if there was n't a scrambling and coughing, and that fool sheep comes running right over me, a-stepping on my stomach so hard I could n't get what breath I had for a minute, and running on past. But afore I could get wind enough to make a break for it the other way, he comes running back again, and he stands up on the rock and looks down at me, pleased-like, and says 'Baa-a-a' again.

"Well, it ain't no use describing what I did the balance of the afternoon to get rid o' that sheep; you would n't believe me. I clumb up cliffs and I hid in prospect-holes and I clumb a tree. Yes, sir;

and that sheep just set under that tree like a dog, and every once in a while he 'd say 'Baa-a-a' again, and I 'd throw down pine cones and branches. He was so lonesome he actual liked to be hit: it showed he was n't alone no more.

"It only pleased him to be kicked and made him more fond o' me. He actual got to licking my hand. I darned near went clean out o' my head when he did that. I just had to get rid o' him; but he just would n't let hisself get lost. Had all he wanted o' that.

"Finally it got so late I could n't fool around no more, and I just jumped out from behind a tree where I was trying to hide, and cut down a long ridge for the mine, what lay in the cañon at the foot. Well, the sheep he came, too, and he came a-running. First it was Peters, and then it was sheep, a-sliding and a-rolling and jumping twenty-foot jumps down that hill and a-stirring up the dust and starting rocks to rolling down on each other. We got nearer and nearer the mine, but I was desprit, and I did n't care. I kept a-putting on steam, and Mr. Sheep kept a-digging right along.

"At last we turned round the spur, and took the trail straight down to camp, and the whole outfit was sitting around, after dinner, smoking. They looked up when they heard us a-coming and saw the dust a-flying, and gave a yell that brought 'em all out, cook, dish-washer, Mrs. Hayes, the Hayes girl, what I was sort o' sweet on, and all.

"Well, here I was coming down the hill like a bear was after me, and here was this sheep piling along right at my back like he was chasing me into camp. I did n't have no sense to think at the time what it looked like, 'cause my mind was all set on getting

away; but o' course it looked to the camp as though that sheep and me had met up on the mountain somewhere and had a tussle, and the sheep was getting the better o' the argument.

"I came a-steaming into camp and clear through it, sheep tearing along and pawing up the dirt right after me, and every once in a while letting out a sort o' halfchoked 'Baa-a-a.' I headed right into the cook-house, and so did the sheep, and I turned and clumb like lightning out o' the window, and dropped down on the bench, all played out. The sheep he got up with his feet on a box and looked out o' the window, all tuckered out and panting; but when he saw me his face kind o' lighted up, and he let out another 'Baaa-a,' glad and relieved-like.

"Well, I left the mine next day, and never stopped till I reached Nevada City. Them fools laid around on the ground laughing for an hour. They just yelled and hollered till they cried and had to quit from soreness. I wanted to fight 'em all, and dared 'em to get up and meet me; but every time I started to talk they just gave another gap and fell over again.

"I left the sheep there, and they named him 'Grizzly' and tied him up with a chain, making out he was so fierce. O' course I was young and ticklish in them days, and I thought I might as well shoot myself and be done with it. But the next morning I drew my pay early and left. As I got to the top o' the grade I stopped a minute and looked back, thinking o' the Hayes girl, and while I stood there I seen that sheep under the tree pulling at his chain, and away off I heard him say 'Baa-a-a' at me for the last time. That carried me clear to Nevada City, and I ain't been back there since."