e deepening twilight, a step
above him, leaning upon the spade he had delivered up, and looking out
across the shadowy plains, and Sir Bryan could think of no possible
excuse for staying any longer. As he flung his rifle over his shoulder
and made a motion to go, she held out her hand, with a sudden friendly
impulse, and said: "I was very unjust this morning. You couldn't
possibly have known, and it was very kind of you to bury him."

Sir Bryan murmured a remorseful word or two, and then he started down
the mountain side.

"Good-bye," he cried, across the scrub-oaks that were growing dark and
indistinct.

"Good-bye, Mr. Bryan," came the answer, sounding shrill and near through
the intervening distance.

As he looked back, a huge, ungainly form thrust itself before the
slender figure. A great dark head stood out against the light shirtwaist
the girl wore, and he perceived that Comrag had strolled from his stall
for a friendly good-night.

"The only friend she has left now," Sir Bryan reflected in sorrowful
compunction.

He strode down the mountain at a good pace. Now and then a startled
rabbit crossed his path, and once his imagination turned a scrub-oak
into the semblance of a bear. But he gave no heed to these apparitions.
His sportsman's instinct had suffered a check.

By the time Sir Bryan had reached the outskirts of the town, the stars
were out. He looked up at the great mountain giant that closed the range
at the south. Wrapped in darkness and in silence it stood against the
starry sky. He tried to imagine that he could perceive a twinkling light
from the little cabin, but none was visible. The enchantment of the
mountain-side had already withdrawn itself into impregnable shadow.

"Jove!" he said to himself, as he turned into the prosaic town. "If I
were an American, or something of that sort, I'd go up there again."

Being, however, a young Irish baronet, as shy of entanglements with his
own kind as he was eager for encounters with wild beasts, he very wisely
went his way the next morning, and up to this time has never beheld
mountain or maiden again.

Over the grave which Sir Bryan dug, there stands to-day a stout pine
board, upon which may be read the following legend:

"Here lies the body of
Brian Boru,
shot through the heart
and subsequently buried
by an agreeable Paddy
of the same name."

Every year, however, the inscription becomes somewhat less legible and
it is t