is as he left it, and
all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled
the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white
walk he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and
cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of
the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude
of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs
forward with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her he feels a
stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all
about him, with a sound like the shock of a cannon--then all is darkness
and silence!

Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from
side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek Bridge.

THE GIANT AND PYGMY OF BOOKLAND.

The extremes of bookland which meet in the British Museum are each
remarkable products of the art of book-making. Difficulties would seem to
attend the perusal of either of them, though of a widely different sort.
Here is to be seen the largest book in the world--an atlas of the
fifteenth century. It is seven feet high. When a tall man consults it, his
head is hidden as he stands between its generous leaves. Its stout binding
and ponderous clasps make it seem as substantial as the walls of a room.

The smallest book in the world is a tiny "Bijou Almanac"--less than an
inch square, bound in dainty red morocco, and easily to be concealed in
the finger of a lady's glove.

These two extremes of the printer's art might well stand at the beginning
and the end of the amazing thirty-seven miles of shelves filled with books
which belong to the great English library.

The Great Southwest.

BY CHARLES M. HARVEY.

The Marvelous Development, Agricultural, Industrial, and Commercial, That
Is Now in Progress in the States of Texas and Arkansas and
the Adjoining Territories.

_Revised from_ MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE _and brought up to date by the author
for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.

EDITOR'S NOTE.--In the growth of interest in the great
States west of the Mississippi River the Southwest has until
lately been commonly neglected. Gold sent men rushing first
to the mountain States. Then grain led them to the prairie
States. With the more fertile wheat lands fully occupied,
there has of late been a tendency to the Canadian Northwest.
But at the same time a re