. The outcast stood immovable, watching the strange
apparition, which seemed to have sprung out of the ocean.

The boat touched the water and shot lustily forward.

"Pull with all your might, lads, for the man is insane, and is
preparing to leap overboard. A big shark is lying in wait for him, and
the moment he touches the water he is gone."

The men did pull with all their might and hallooed to the drifting one
and warned him of the shark.

"Wait a minute," they cried, "and we'll take you on the ship!"

The purpose of the men seemed at last to have dawned upon the
understanding of the outcast. He straightened himself as well as he
could into a wretched semblance of dignity, and hoarsely replied,--

"No; I have played a game and lost; an honest man will pay a debt of
honor."

And with such a light in his eyes as comes only into those whose vision
has penetrated the most wonderful of all mysteries, he leaped forth
into the sea.

Treacherous Velasco

Sitting at the open window of her room in the upper story of the
farmhouse, on the Rancho San Gregorio, Senora Violante Ovando de
McPherson watched, with the deepest interest, a cloud of dust which
rose in the still May air far down the valley; for it was evident that
the color in her cheeks and the sparkle in her violet-black eyes spoke
a language of devotion and happiness. Her husband was coming home, and
with him his vaqueros, after a tedious drive of cattle to San
Francisco. He had been gone but a month; but what an interminable
absence that is to a wife of a year! She had watched the fading of the
wild golden poppies; she had seen the busy workers of the bee-hives
laying up their stores of honey culled from the myriads of flowers
which carpeted the valley; and she had ridden over the Gabilan Hills to
see the thousands of her husband's cattle which dotted them. She had
been respectful of her housekeeping duties, and had directed Alice, the
sewing-girl, in the making of garments for the approaching hot season.
Yet, busy as she thought she was, and important as she imagined herself
to be in the management of the great ranch, time had dragged itself by
in manacles. But now was coming the cloud of dust to lift the cloud of
loneliness; and if ever a young wife's heart quickened with gladness,
it was hers.

Presently the fine young Scotchman leaped from his horse, clasped his
wife in his arms, asked a few hurried questions concerning her welfare
during his