ea and knew the Rockies like my own back garden.
How often had I sprung upon the back of the charging buffalo and so
escaped him! It was an everyday emergency to have to set the prairie on
fire in front of me in order to escape from the fire behind, or to run a
mile down a brook to throw the bloodhounds off my trail. I had creased
horses, I had shot down rapids, I had strapped on my mocassins
hind-foremost to conceal my tracks, I had lain under water with a reed
in my mouth, and I had feigned madness to escape the torture. As to the
Indian braves whom I slew in single combats, I could have stocked a
large graveyard, and, fortunately enough, though I was a good deal
chipped about in these affairs, no real harm ever came of it, and I was
always nursed back into health by a very fascinating young squaw. It was
all more real than the reality. Since those days I have in very truth
both shot bears and harpooned whales, but the performance was flat
compared with the first time that I did it with Mr. Ballantyne or
Captain Mayne Reid at my elbow.

[Illustration: 'WITH THE EDITOR'S COMPLIMENTS']

In the fulness of time I was packed off to a public school, and in some
way it was discovered by my playmates that I had more than my share of
the lore after which they hankered. There was my _debut_ as a
story-teller. On a wet half-holiday I have been elevated on to a desk,
and with an audience of little boys all squatting on the floor, with
their chins upon their hands, I have talked myself husky over the
misfortunes of my heroes. Week in and week out those unhappy men have
battled and striven and groaned for the amusement of that little circle.
I was bribed with pastry to continue these efforts, and I remember that
I always stipulated for tarts down and strict business, which shows that
I was born to be a member of the Authors' Society. Sometimes, too, I
would stop dead in the very thrill of a crisis, and could only be set
agoing again by apples. When I had got as far as 'With his left hand in
her glossy locks, he was waving the blood-stained knife above her head,
when---- ' or 'Slowly, slowly, the door turned upon its hinges, and with
eyes which were dilated with horror, the wicked Marquis saw---- ' I knew
that I had my audience in my power. And thus my second book was evolved.

[Illustration: 'HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT YOU?']

It may be that my literary experiences would have ended there had there
not come a time in my ea