. She spurred herself on,
and came to the jail blind with fatigue. As she neared the jail she saw
her father and Mickey. In amazement her father hailed her, but she would
not stop. She was admitted to the prison on explaining that she had a
reprieve. Entering a room filled with excited people, she heard a cry.

It came from Ba'tiste. He had arrived but ten minutes before, and, in
the Sheriff's presence had discovered his loss. He had appealed in vain.

But now, as he saw the girl, he gave a shout of joy which pierced the
hearts of all.

"Ah, you haf it! Say you haf it, or it is no use--he mus' hang.
Spik-spik! Ah, my brudder--it is to do him right! Ah, Loisette--bon
Dieu, merci!"

For answer she placed the reprieve in the hands of the Sheriff. Then she
swayed and fell fainting at the feet of Ba'tiste.

She had come at the stroke of the hour.

When she left for her home again the Sheriff kissed her.

And that was not the only time he kissed her. He did it again six months
later, at the beginning of the harvest, when she and Ba'tiste Caron
started off on the long trail of life together. None but Ba'tiste knew
the truth about the loss of the reprieve, and to him she was "beautibul"
just the same, and greatly to be desired.

BUCKMASTER'S BOY

"I bin waitin' for him, an' I'll git him of it takes all winter. I'll
git him--plumb."

The speaker smoothed the barrel of his rifle with mittened hand, which
had, however, a trigger-finger free. With black eyebrows twitching over
sunken grey eyes, he looked doggedly down the frosty valley from the
ledge of high rock where he sat. The face was rough and weather-beaten,
with the deep tan got in the open life of a land of much sun and little
cloud, and he had a beard which, untrimmed and growing wild, made him
look ten years older than he was.

"I bin waitin' a durn while," the mountain-man added, and got to
his feet slowly, drawing himself out to six and a half feet of burly
manhood. The shoulders were, however, a little stooped, and the head was
thrust forwards with an eager, watchful look--a habit become a physical
characteristic.

Presently he caught sight of a hawk sailing southward along the peaks
of the white icebound mountains above, on which the sun shone with such
sharp insistence, making sky and mountain of a piece in deep purity and
serene stillness.

"That hawk's seen him, mebbe," he said, after a moment. "I bet it went
up higher when it got him in its