a bed in
Bedlam. Besides being a thorough gentleman, I think Mr. Dorset is a
spendthrift for making us such a liberal offer. You ain't going to let
the chance go, are you?"

"Tell you the truth, Bill," says I, "this little he ewe lamb has
somewhat got on my nerves too. We'll take him home, pay the ransom, and
make our getaway."

We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that his
father had bought a silver-mounted rifle and a pair of moccasins for
him, and we were going to hunt bears the next day.

It was just twelve o'clock when we knocked at Ebenezer's front door.
Just at the moment when I should have been abstracting the fifteen
hundred dollars from the box under the tree, according to the original
proposition, Bill was counting out two hundred and fifty dollars into
Dorset's hand.

When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home he started up
a howl like a calliope and fastened himself as tight as a leech to
Bill's leg. His father peeled him away gradually, like a porous plaster.

"How long can you hold him!" asks Bill.

"I'm not as strong as I used to be," says old Dorset, "but I think I can
promise you ten minutes."

"Enough," says Bill. "In ten minutes I shall cross the Central,
Southern, and Middle Western States, and be legging it trippingly for
the Canadian border."

And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Bill was, and as good a runner as
I am, he was a good mile and a half out of Summit before I could catch
up with him.

FOOTNOTE:

[E] Reprinted by special permission from "Whirligigs." Copyright, 1910,
by Doubleday, Page and Company.

[Illustration]

VI.--The Honk-Honk Breed[F]

_By Stewart Edward White_

IT was Sunday at the ranch. For a wonder the weather had been favorable;
the windmills were all working, the bogs had dried up, the beef had
lasted over, the remuda had not strayed--in short, there was nothing to
do. Sang had given us a baked bread-pudding with raisins in it. We
filled it in--a wash-basin full of it--on top of a few incidental pounds
of _chile con_, baked beans, soda biscuits, "air-tights," and other
delicacies. Then we adjourned with our pipes to the shady side of the
blacksmith's shop where we could watch the ravens on top the adobe wall
of the corral. Somebody told a story about ravens. This led to
road-runners. This suggested rattlesnakes. They started Windy Bill.

"Speakin' of snakes," said Windy, "I mind when they catched the
gre