t's all."

Francis glared first at one, then at the other, and as he did so he
began to realize the full cost of his action. When it came home to
him in terms of dollars and cents, he showed his true character by
stammering:

"I--I made a frightful mistake. I'm--not myself; really, I'm not. It
was your wife's fault." In a panic he ran on, unmindful of Leontine's
scorn. "She did it, Mr. Phillips. She gave me the knife. She whispered
things--she made me--I--I'm very sorry--Mr. Phillips, and I'll play
the part the way you want it. I will, indeed."

Leontine met her husband's look defiantly; hence it was as much to her
as to the cringing actor that the playwright said:

"Your salary will go on as usual, under your contract, Mr.
Francis--that is, until the management supplies you with a new play;
but I'm the real John Danton, and I shall play him tonight and
henceforth."

"Then, I'm--discharged? Norma--d'you hear that? We're canceled.
Fired!"

"No, Miss Berwynd's name will go up in lights as the star, if she
cares to stay," said Phillips. "Do you wish to remain?" He looked down
at the woman, and she nodded.

"Yes, oh yes!" she said. "I _must_ stay. I daren't go back." That
hunted look leaped into her eyes again, and Phillips recognized it now
as fear, the abject physical terror of the weaker animal. "I want to
go--forward--not backward, if there is any way."

"I'll show you the way," he told her, gently. "We'll find it
together."

He smiled reassuringly, and with a little gasping sigh she placed her
hand in his.

RUNNING ELK

Up from the valley below came the throb of war drums, the faint rattle
of shots, and the distant cries of painted horsemen charging. From
my vantage-point on the ridge I had an unobstructed view of the
encampment, a great circle of tepees and tents three miles in
circumference, cradled in a sag of the timberless hills. The sounds
came softly through the still Dakota air, and my eye took in every
sharp-drawn detail of the scene--ponies grazing along the creek
bottom, children playing beneath the blue smoke of camp-fires, the
dense crowd ringed about a medicine pole in their center, intent on a
war-dance.

Five thousand Sioux were here in all their martial splendor. They were
painted and decked and trapped for war, living again their days of
plenty, telling anew their tales of might, and repeating on a mimic
scale their greatest battles. Five days the feasting had continued;
fiv