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didn't know his face when I looked on it. Think of that, Shannon, his own cousin didn't know his face."

"Dunmoyle'll never look near Bridget," said Mullins. "He'll only think it's a nuisance that she's there at all." As he spoke, Dunmoyle came in view, mounted on a somewhat fidgety mare.

"Look at him," laughed Shannon, "the measly chestnut is the pick of his stables. I'd like to see Dunmoyle with the hounds running. The only thing he cares is not to get wet on his leathers.

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At the funeral Rathdonnel had indulged in five or six glasses of raw spirits, and, thrusting his hat over his face, made his exit across the little Raphoe street and took a bridle path which led around Ballinasloe Mountain. The solitude, broken only by pheasants chasing one another and the corncrake poking across the stubble, influenced him as it never had done before, and the thought of living in a world like this homeless, or languishing in a country beautiful as Donegal without food, exasperated him.

As he lay, his face to the earth, the sound of stones torn by a horse's feet caught his ear, and looking ahead, he saw Dunmoyle's mare, the mists folding her in drapery, stepping gingerly over the boles of fallen trees, rounding a point sheltered by a rock. Rathdonnel crawled through the brambles, and rolled a boulder down the incline of the mountain directly in front of Dunmoyle.

Rathdonnel was a man of great strength; a blow from his shillalah, which had been tempered in a dung-heap, would fell Dunmoyle. Still, if he took his chances with him, it was not impossible that, braced with anger, the fight would go wrong and he might find himself lodged in Raphoe jail. Dunmoyle stopped before reaching the boulder, and, letting the reins fall on the mare's neck, dismounted to tighten the girth, giving the stone a whack which knocked the riding whip out of his hand.

Something seemed to break loose in Rathdonnel's brain. He raised his hand and thrust at Dunmoyle, and springing forward got the whip from his hand, and with a gesture of his arm sent him headlong down the steep descent. Then, pushing his way back through the stubble where the mare stood restless, the rims of her nostrils expanding, he took hold of the bridle that hung down, and switching her on the belly, watched her scramble down the mountain. Her return to Ballina Castle would be the token of a fatal

fall from the saddle, without a trace of foul play.

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Early the next morning he came under Shannon's window. In a corner of the cabin Peggie and Shannon lay sleeping, the baby between them. Leaning through the broken pane, radiating an aroma of tobacco, he said: Michael, do you hear the word they're making about Dunmoyle? Sure, since yesterday they haven't a trace of him only that he went the road over Raphoe Mountain; but the mare's come back to the stable, and they're going to search the gulch. No one only a cat could reach it. McCrum says he'll let himself down with a rope, but if it's there Dunmoyle is, we'll leave him till he rots. He'll never be in Raphoe again, for it's the nearest place to hell in Ireland.”

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How did he get there?" said Shannon, embracing Peggie with one arm.

"No one only God can tell that," said Rathdonnel; "but he was strange to the mountain, and if he has tried his luck at a tumble, maybe he got a lodging he didn't dream of."

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Where were you, Michael, at the heel of the evening?"

"Where was I?" said Shannon. "Sure, it was last night, and the shindy was at Mullin's to finish Shiel's wake. We had the pipes and tobacco, and Mullin let me have the whisky on credit, so I was sittin' down in Dunshaughlin Bog, singing to myself, when I come home to keep myself from sleeping."

The baby, his sleeves rolled up, was crowding himself behind Peggy to have a spree over some curdled milk.

"For heaven sakes, Michael, what's the matter?" she said, pointing towards the bog, where a sergeant of police and three soldiers in red coats were hurrying toward the cabin. "What brings them here?"

"They're everywhere, and will be till they nab some one," said Rathdonnel.

"I have a warrant here," said the sergeant, as though addressing them all; and then turning to Shannon, "Mullin's whisky made you talk last night," he said. "You swore to destroy all belonging to Dunmoyle. No one can find him. The town is fuller than it can hold, and they say you must be put before the justice."

Peggie, without knowing what she was doing, had left the corner and was in the doorway, listening to the conversation, looking at Shannon and he at her, as they went from one word to another. As the sergeant watched her, the baby with its fat little hand seized hold of the warrant. "God be with us, Michael, do you know anything about Dunmoyle?" she asked, unlocking the blue cloak and pulling it down below her shoulders as though to breathe the better.

Shannon saw Dunmoyle go off on the mare," said the sergeant; "I know that for

sure.

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Dunmoyle went by the public, and the whole of Shiel's funeral watching him," said Shannon.

"Well, we can't find him," said the sergeant, drawing tighter the strap of his belt, "and I must take you."

Peggy turned pale as Shannon gave a bound to his feet to say good-by, but on the edge of the bog he heard a cry, and after going a few steps more, saw Peggie in the arms of Rathdonnel, and tearing himself away from the soldiers and swearing an Irish oath, he went back to her.

"It's a pity of her," said the sergeant; "she's near dead with the fright, and small blame to her. She came of honest, decent, God-fearing people. Bad cess to you, Shannon; this is your cursed work. Feel of her heart. Sure it's moving every way.'

Shannon dropped on his knee by Peggie's side and threw the long blue cloak on the turf. "Peggie," he whispered, "I am holding you in my own arms. Don't you feel me? Lord have mercy on us, Peggie, I'm telling you only the truth. I never raised a finger to hurt Dunmoyle.

"Don't let her die without the priest who

christened her," said the sergeant; "I'll go every inch of the way, have him myself."

"Och, I'm easy as to the life of Peggie's soul," said Shannon. "What I want is to see her put her blue eyes on me."

"Of course you do, Shannon," said the sergeant, "but I'm a bit of a doctor, and I tell you she has panted the breath of her body out. Her heart hasn't beat this fifty seconds. The blood in her veins is still.”

The soldiers stood about in a variety of positions, the baby among them. Suddenly Shannon felt Peggie's heart beating against his arm. He gave a rather contemptuous glance at the sergeant.

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Rathdonnel," he said, come you here and look at her. See, Peggie, darling, there's the bed in the corner for you."

Rathdonnel looked at Peggie, Shannon's thick fingers in her handsome black hair.

"See here," he said to the sergeant, "no one's hands shall be heavy on her. It wasn't Shannon give Dunmoyle the length of himself last night in Ballina Gulch. I did it myself, and there's no sin on my soul, for many's the day and night Dunmoyle gave me an empty stomach. Glory be to God left me strength to do it. Sure, Dunmoyle will not be missed out of Raphoe by so much as a dog; and why should he, starving facing us? Not a cabin to put me head in, nor land to give a rabbit a run. The thing for me to do is better myself or die. I'm like to do that lying in the road."

"Och, saints in heaven, Rathdonnel," said Peggie, crossing her forehead, her lovely blue eyes opening and responding to Shannon's glances, " don't be talking ill of the dead."

The sergeant wondered to see Rathdonnel taking the blame on himself. "If you stand to this, Rathdonnel," he said, "do you know what will become of you?"

"Damn what becomes of me," said Rathdonnel, coolly picking up his shillalah. “You may have the law of me. Sure, I haven't a wife like that at the back of me. I'd sooner part with my neck than let anything harm her."

A COUPLE O' CAPTAINS.

BY CY WARMAN,

Author of "Tales of an Engineer," The Express Messenger," ""The Story of the Railroad," etc.

JIMINY [IMINY Christmas," groaned Tom, "how my arm aches!"

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'Don't think o' your arm," said Gene, twisting in his blankets. "I'd take your wound for the prospect of promotion that hangs over your head."

"Be quiet," said Tom, and he sighed heavily.

The stars were burning like coals of fire in the blue above them, and all about the winds were breathing in the sage-brush. The two boys had been in battle that day—a hot fight with the Sioux-and Tom had labored and larruped a wily warrior single-handed and alone under the very nose of the Colonel, and for that reason and not because he had received a slight, though painful, wound in his arm, his comrade Gene argued that promotion would come to Tom. It did come, and still another, and in less than a month's time he was a captain.

Gene was a big, brave, strong youth, and it was not long until he, too, began to take on markers at the tops of his shoulders. Without any of that invisible something commonly called "pull," both boys fought themselves up so that at the end of the five years' strife with the Sioux they were captains of cavalry. It was all very exciting: even thrilling at times. But the war ended one fine day, as wars will, and the two captains found themselves without employment, and, one of them at least, without tangible means of support. The disbanding of the army had thrown some thousands of men suddenly upon a country in which all the good jobs seemed to be filled.

"We must do something," said Tom. "Yes," assented his friend; "we'll have to get married or go to work sooner or later, I suppose."

"I wish we could get into something together."

"Like enough if we did get in together, they'd put us in separate cells," said Gene. He had money-not much, perhaps, but money and parents well-to-do, and could afford to joke. But it was a serious matter with Tom. He was as poor as a Greek and

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Braking on the Burlington." 'W-h-a-t?"

Braking on the Burlington." Gene smiled.

The Burlington had just been opened as far as Omaha, and Ottumwa was only a small settlement. Iowa was right out on the raw edge of the wide, wild West. The Indians were wrecking stations and robbing freight cars, and a flagman three cars from the caboose couldn't call his scalp his own. "Passenger train, I presume?" said Gene, breaking the hush. "Freight." "What?" "Freight."

"Say, Tom, you're crazy. What you want to throw yourself away on a box-car for? It won't do-not for me it's preposterous!"

"It beats walking."

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Perhaps, but we haven't had to walk yet. Think of it! Society column of the Chicago Tribune,' 'Captain Smith and Captain Jones are braking on freight out of Ottumwa.' Come, Tom, I'm not broke yet; besides, you are too young and handsome to be killed."

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"Ticket," called the conductor. The man was reading.

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Ticket," and he touched the man's shoulder, and the man looked up.

"Why-hel-lo, Tom. What you doing?" "I'm trying to run this train," said Tom, passing the punch to his left hand in order to shake the hand the passenger held out.

When the conductor had worked the train, he came back to the passenger with the book.

"Say, Gene," said the ticket-taker, "I was so elated over this unexpected pleasure that I forgot to get your ticket. You ought to be ashamed to make me ask the third time for it."

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Gene waited impatiently for five minutes, it seemed to him. He was glad enough to meet an old friend, but the diagram had gone to the sleeping-car conductor, and Gene wanted to secure a place. Finally, as the train was about to pull out-in fact, the time was up by the big clock on the wallthe waiting traveler was gladdened by the reappearance of the busy man.

"What's the matter with you, Tom? Do you want me to get left?"

Tom smiled. "My dear Gene, don't you know this train would not pull out without you?"

"That's all very funny," Gene replied; "but I've got no place to sleep."

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By this time Tom had been met by a smart black porter, who, at a faint signal from his master, took the hand baggage from the over-anxious traveler and ran up the rear steps of the rear-most car.

Is this my car?" asked Gene, stopping and glancing along the platform. "No, it's mine; but you can ride. Come, hand yourself aboard; I shan't make you put up this trip."

The train conductor, ever alert, saw the two men enter the car, lifted his white light, and the big engine breathed softly, and moved out of the station shed.

Gene, following the trail of the black boy, stood upon the platform of a car that seemed to be all plate glass, and stepped hesitatingly into a luxurious drawing-room.

"Now what's all this folderol, Tom?" asked Gene, for he had been abroad and had lost track of his old "pal" of the plains.

Tom was a modest man, and so told his friend in a modest way that he was the General Manager and that this was the private car that the company had given over for his comfort and convenience. We may suppose it was a pleasant evening that the two captains passed as the train carried them away to the West.

A few years later Tom left the Burlington and went over to take charge of the Union Pacific. He had an agreement that gave him a fabulous salary, and the written promise of the owners of the property that the road should be run by him from Omaha and not by anyone else, and, above all, that he should not be compelled to take signals from

the seaboard, given by men who were in the habit of putting a day coach in the shops to have the stove changed to "the front end," instead of turning the car on the table or running it round a "Y."

This good and useful man had been at his new post but one short year when he was called in by the Great Manager of the Universe, and when the news of his death went over the wire it made heavy the hearts of thousands of railway employees all over this Continent, for he was, without question, one of the most humane managers that has ever lived.

All night long, from North to South, from East to West, as the conductor swung down from a coach or a way car the operator would meet him and say in a low tone, "Tom Potter's dead." In most cases the conductor would make no reply, but when he handed the order up to the engineer he

would say, as the operator had said to him, "Tom Potter's dead."

"No!" the engineman would say, turning to watch the conductor, who was already taking his way sadly back to the caboose to break the news to the brakemen.

"What's that?" asks the fireman.

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'Tom Potter's dead." And then the engineer would open the throttle slowly, and if she slipped, he gave her sand and humored her, and he didn't swear.

The other captain, who has also made a name and a place for himself, is still with us. He is the "split-trick" in the prosperous law firm of Gleed, Ware, and Gleed, of Topeka. He is the wholesome, happy, twohundred-pound poet of the Kansas capital whose nom-de-plume is "Ironquill"; and if you doubt this story, it is probably because you have been reading romances and have lost confidence in the simple true tales that from time to time appear in print.

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