experiment. With
a serious face, but half an eye on the boy, he howled, moaned and grunted
_The Cow-boy's Lament_, which still presents the insoluble problem of
whether the words or the music are drearier. "OooooOOO!!! Pla-a-ay your
fifes l-o-o-w-l-y, a-a-nd beee-eat your drums sl-o-o-o-wly, and play the
dead m-a-arch as you carry me o-o-o-on!" mourned Jim. Ches was all
attention. "For I'm o-o-o-nly a p-o-o-o-r cow-boy, and I know I've done
w-r-o-o-o-o-o-ng!" wailed the singer, in conclusion. "How'd you like
that, Ches?"

"Say, dat's a ringer!" cried the boy enthusiastically.

Jim sat him down by the roadside and laughed his fill. "I think you're
hopeless," he gasped.

The boy was hurt in a way he could not understand. Something pained
him--a new sensation, of not being up to the requirements of another's
view. His forced acute intelligence made a bull's-eye shot.

"P'r'aps w'en I've got er chist and t'umpers on me like you, I'll like
der udder kin' er song," he said.

Jim looked at the pathetic little figure on the burro, and his conscience
smote him. "That's right, boy," he replied very kindly. "I was only
joking--ought not to be any ill feeling between friends over a joke, you
know. Now, you sing ahead all you plenty please."

"Don't say nuttin' more about it," replied Ches. "It's all square."

A little farther on Jim noticed a piece of quartz outcrop with a metal
stain on it. Now, a miner can no more pass such a thing than some others
could refuse to pick up the pin shining at their feet, so he took a stone
and hammered off a specimen for future reference. In the meantime Ches,
on the burro, got around the turn of the trail.

Suddenly the boy set up a shout of excitement. "Oh, Mister!" he yelled,
with a string of profanity, his promise forgotten in his heat. "Come
quick, an' look at der cat! Come quick, quick, quick! What a cat! You
never see sich a cat!"

Jim dashed forward. "Well, I should say cat!" he remarked, as he took in
the situation. On a ledge about fifty feet above the road crouched a
full-grown mountain lion, ears back, eyes furtively glimpsing every
avenue of escape, yaggering at the intruders savagely.

The small boy in Jim Felton rose on the instant. "Pelt him, Ches! Pelt
him!" he cried, and let fly the rock in his hand by way of illustration.
A wild animal seems to have little idea of a missile.

The lion held his ground and let the stone strike him in the side. Then,
with a screech like