o do the job up right. After
reaching the second ladder, it was no kind of a trick to slide it down
and use it over again. The first thing I did when I got down was to run
as fast as I could to the river and drink as much water as I dared, then
I lay down in the water and enjoyed it. Talk about your Paradise
Cocktails--they are not to be compared with that Verde River water which
I tasted that day!"

"Antonio?"

"Oh, yes, he is there yet, I believe, although I have never been back
since to see, and I hope I never will. My first experience among the
Cliff Dwellers was all sufficient."

THE AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP.

I.

A committee from the Phoenix Athletic Club and one from the Prescott
Club had met, and after considerable discussion had arranged a match to
decide the Amateur Championship of Arizona.

As the Phoenix and Prescott clubs were far and away the foremost
athletic organizations in the Territory, the contest was looked forward
to with a great interest, especially as an intense rivalry existed
between the two cities.

"Let the contest be fair and square on both sides," said Smith, the
chairman of the Phoenix committee. "Let each club send its best man,
who is strictly an amateur, of course, and a member of the club, in
good standing, and let the best man win."

"Them's my sentiments exactly," responded Johnson, the chairman of the
Prescott committee. "Fair play and honors to the best man, say I! I did
think of sending a young fellow I know in our club who took some
sparring lessons in 'Frisco last year, and is quite clever; he's a
gunsmith by profession, but the trouble is he has been teaching the boys
during his spare time when he could get away from the shop, and that
makes him a professional, doesn't it?"

"It does," said Smith, "and I am glad to find you are as particular as I
am in such matters; let me tell you, it is a pleasure to meet a man like
yourself who tries to be fair and square, and to take no advantage of
anybody. Let's take something."

During the next few days there were anxious meetings of the committees
in charge of the arrangements. A certain man well up in sporting
matters went to 'Frisco as a committee of one, representing the Prescott
Club, to hunt for talent; at the same time a brother of the chairman of
the Phoenix committee, who kept a bar-room in Chicago, received a
letter which caused considerable discussion between him and his partner,
and several interviews with a