of Constantine Jopp, one of the three, who bore malice
toward O'Ryan, though this his colleagues did not know distinctly. The
scene was a camp-fire--a starlit night, a colloquy between the three, upon
which the hero of the drama, played by Terry O'Ryan, should break, after
having, unknown to them, but in sight of the audience, overheard their
kind intentions toward himself.

The night came. When the curtain rose for the third act there was exposed
a star-sown sky, in which the galaxy of Orion was shown with distinctness,
each star sharply twinkling from the electric power behind--a pretty
scene, evoking great applause. O'Ryan had never seen this back
curtain--they had taken care that he should not--and, standing in the
wings awaiting his cue, he was unprepared for the laughter of the
audience, first low and uncertain, then growing, then insistent, and now a
peal of ungovernable mirth, as one by one they understood the significance
of the stars of Orion on the back curtain.

O'Ryan got his cue, and came on to an outburst of applause which shook the
walls. La Touche rose at him, among them Miss Molly Mackinder in the front
row with the notables.

He did not see the back curtain, or Orion blazing in the ultramarine blue.
According to the stage directions, he was to steal along the trees at the
wings, and listen to the talk of the men at the fire plotting against him,
who were presently to pretend good comradeship to his face. It was a
vigorous melodrama, with some touches of true Western feeling. After
listening for a moment, O'Ryan was to creep up the stage again toward the
back curtain, giving a cue for his appearance.

When the hilarious applause at his entrance had somewhat subsided, the
three took up their parable, but it was not the parable of the play. They
used dialogue not in the original. It had a significance which the
audience were not slow to appreciate, and went far to turn _The Sunburst
Trail_ at this point into a comedy-farce. When this new dialogue began,
O'Ryan could scarcely trust his ears or realize what was happening.

"Ah, look," said Dicky Fergus at the fire, "as fine a night as I ever saw
in the West! The sky's a picture. You could almost hand the stars down,
they're so near."

"What's that clump together on the right--what are they called in
astronomy?" asked Constantine Jopp, with a leer.

"Orion is the name--a beauty, ain't it?" answered Fergus.

"I've been watching Orion rise," said the