* "What have you been drinkin', Racey?" demanded Mr. Saltoun, winking at his son-in-law and foreman, Tom Loudon.

Mr. Saltoun and Tom Loudon stared their astonishment.

" "I wouldn't do it," put in Tom Loudon.

" "Looks like a good chance to lose twenty-four hundred dollars," exclaimed Tom Loudon, wrathfully.

" "Aw right, have it yore own way," said Tom Loudon with every symptom of disgust.

"Yo're shore the jokin'est feller, Tom Loudon.

" "I should think they would," Tom Loudon returned, savagely.

Who's" "Racey," interrupted Tom Loudon, who had approached unperceived, "this is a fine way to treat yore friends.

" "I guess you will," Tom Loudon said, ruefully.

Now as he rode, his eyes closely scanning the various places in the landscape providing good cover for possible bushwhackers, he recalled what Loudon had said.

So did Tom Loudon, and Swing, too.

" "So does everybody else," put in Tom Loudon, "but if something don't turn up damn quick" He broke off, shaking a dubious head.

"Aw, the devil!" exclaimed Marie, looking helplessly at Tom Loudon and Mr. Saltoun.

" Tom Loudon handed over his pouch without a word.

She picked up her reins and nodded to Tom Loudon and Mr. Saltoun.

For Tom Loudon had contrived to make a long leg and give Mr. Saltoun a vigorous kick on the ankle.

"I guess we'll be goin'," dodged Tom Loudon, and then took off his hat to Miss Dale.

"Here," he demanded, crowding his horse alongside, "what did yuh kick me for?" Tom Loudon looked over his shoulder before replying.

Who'd 'a' thought it?" "Old Salt an' Tom Loudon got a couple o' claims on the other side of the ridge from Dale's mine," put in Kansas Casey.

Mr. Loudon says, when in Bedfordshire lately, "we were informed of an old man who sung a psalm last year in front of some hives which were not doing well, but which he said would thrive in consequence of that ceremony.

* * LOUDON'S MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY.

Of such Cyclopædias, that of Loudon will not soon find a rival.

Mr. Loudon, observes that the black Mulberry has been known from the earliest records of antiquity and that it is twice mentioned in the Bible: namely, in the second Book of Samuel and in the Psalms.

And when Mr. Loudon visited (in 1831) the once beautiful grounds of Shenstone, he "found them in a state of indescribable neglect and ruin.

Mr. Loudon tells us that there is an old oak in Binfield Wood, Windsor Forest, which is called Pope's Oak, and which bears the inscription "HERE POPE SANG:"[014] but according to general tradition it was a beech tree, under which Pope wrote his "Windsor Forest."