enjoyed more
the hours which they now regularly passed in the relation of teacher and
pupil.

It must be said, also, that while George Melville evinced an aptitude
for teaching, Herbert showed an equal aptitude for learning. The tasks
which he voluntarily undertook most boys would have found irksome, but
he only found them a source of pleasure, and had the satisfaction, after
a very short time, to find himself able to read ordinary French and
German prose with comparative ease.

"I never had a better pupil," said George Melville.

"I believe I am the first you ever had," said Herbert, laughing.

"That is true. I spoke as if I were a veteran teacher."

"Then I won't be too much elated by the compliment."

CHAPTER XXXIV. TWO OLD ACQUAINTANCES REAPPEAR.

In the rude hotel kept by the outlaw, whom we have introduced under the
name of Brown, there sat two men, to neither of whom will my readers
need an introduction. They have already appeared in our story.

One was Brown himself, the other Col. Warner, or, as we may as well
confess, Jerry Lane, known throughout the West as an unscrupulous
robber and chief of a band of road agents, whose depredations had been
characterized by audacity and success.

Brown was ostensibly an innkeeper, but this business, honest enough in
itself, only veiled the man's real trade, in which he defied alike the
laws of honesty and of his country. The other was by turns a gentleman
of property, a merchant, a cattle owner, or a speculator, in all of
which characters he acted excellently, and succeeded in making the
acquaintance of men whom he designed to rob.

The two men wore a sober look. In their business, as in those more
legitimate, there are good times and dull times, and of late they had
not succeeded.

"I want some money, captain," said Brown, sullenly, laying down a black
pipe, which he had been smoking.

"So do I, Brown," answered Warner, as we will continue to call him.
"It's a dry time with me."

"You don't understand me, captain," continued Brown. "I want you to give
me some money."

"First you must tell me where I am to get it," answered Warner, with a
shrug of his shoulders.

"Do you mean to say you have no money?" asked Brown, frowning.

"How should I have?"

"Because in all our enterprises you have taken the lion's share, though
you haven't always done the chief part. You can't have spent the whole."

"No, not quite; but I have nothing to spare. I need