thoughtfully. "Maybe he's seeing that ancestry won't make a man. It's hard
to admit those things, I know that. I hated to admit that the Eastern
fellows at school had better manners than we cow-punchers from this part
of the country. But 'twas so all the same."

Virginia allowed Pedro to nibble at the quaking-asps before she spoke.

"He'll come out all right, Don," she said. "Don't let's worry! Sometimes I
think he's like Captain Myles in the poem. Priscilla does, too. He gets
angry all at once, and then hates himself for it. By and by he'll be all
right again, and as nice as ever the Captain was at John Alden's wedding.
Come on, let's round the hill! We're nearly at Mr. Livy's, and they'll
think we're too exclusive for worlds!"

The Emperor's flag was out--a diminutive and tattered Old Glory, whose
shreds fluttered in the wind. It was tacked to a wooden box, which,
mounted on a log at the entrance to a narrow, winding path, served as the
Emperor's mail-box. The name

A. C. Levinsky

was painted upon the side facing the road. As they turned into the path,
Priscilla halted Cyclone. There was a decided tinge of stubbornness in her
voice as she spoke.

"I'm not going another step," she announced, "until I know about this
Emperor business. I'm not going to embarrass any poor old thing who may
live in this wilderness by not knowing anything about him. Come, Donald!
You've got to tell!"

"I intended to all along just as soon as we reached the bridge," said
Donald. "I know the Emperor, and I wouldn't have him hurt for anything.
His real name is Augustus Caesar Levinsky--at least, his last name is
Levinsky, and I guess he hitched on the first. He's a poor old prospector
who's been in this valley fifty years. He claims he was the very first to
come, and perhaps he was. He's dug holes all over these mountains looking
for gold, and you're always coming on him panning out gravel in some
creek. Some one grub-stakes him up here to get his land. By that, I mean,"
he added, noting the puzzled faces of his listeners, "that some one gives
him food and clothes and a promise to bury him for the sake of the land
he's homesteaded. That's the way with old Pat Sheehan, and a lot of
fellows around here."

"And now he thinks he's the Emperor of Rome," said Virginia, continuing
the Emperor's story. "He's been thinking that for twenty-five years,
Father says. Some one gave him an old Roman History years ago, an