tain's appearance in Madagascar is the affidavit of Israel Phippany and Peter Freeland, at Portsmouth, March 31, 1705, and these mariners may have perjured themselves to save the lives of English seamen condemned by the Scots.

Yet, as a patriotic Scot, I have reason for believing in the English affidavit at Portsmouth. The reason is simple, but sufficient. Captain Drummond, if attacked by Captain Green, was the man to defeat that officer, make prize of his ship, and hang at the yardarm the crew which was so easily mastered by Mr. Roderick Mackenzie and eleven pretty fellows. Hence I conclude that the Worcester really had been pirating off the coast of Malabar, but that the ship taken by Captain Green in these waters was not the Speedy Return, but another, unknown. If so, there was no great miscarriage of justice, for the indictment against Captain Green did not accuse him of seizing the Speedy Return, but of piracy, robbery, and murder, though the affair of the Speedy Return was brought in to give local colour. This fact and the national excitement in Scotland probably turned the scale with the jury, who otherwise would have returned a verdict of Not Proven.' That verdict, in fact, would have been fitted to the merits of the case; but there was mair tint at Shirramuir' than when Captain Green was hanged. The whole affair was regarded at the time as an argument against Home Rule for Scotland, perhaps not unjustly.1

The trial is in Howell's State Trials, vol. xiv. 1812. Roderick Mackenzie's account of his seizure of the Worcester was discovered by the late Mr. Hill Burton, in an oak chest in the Advocates' Library, and is published in his Scottish Criminal Trials, vol. i., 1852.

507

A RAGAMUFFIN OF THE FOOTHILLS.1

BY HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL.

JEFF looked ruefully at the hot dusty road which curled upward and in front of him like a great white snake. At the top of the grade, where some pines stood out against the blue sky, hung a small reek of dust concealing the figure of his late companion. As Jeff gazed, the reek melted away. The young man told himself that he was alone in the brush foothills with a lame horse and a body (his own) so bruised and battered that it seemed to belong to somebody else.

'Hello!' said a voice.

Jeff stared into the chaparral. Wild lilac and big sage bushes, flowering lupins and gilias, bordered the road, for spring was abroad in Southern California. A boy slipped through the lilacs. 'Jee-whiz!' said the boy. You've hurt yourself.'

'That's right,' Jeff replied.

'How did it happen?'

'The plug crossed his feet in the dip yonder and rolled plum over me. Say-do you want to earn an honest dollar?'

The adjective was emphasised, for none knew better than Jeff that the foothills of San Luis Obispo County harboured queer folk. The boy nodded.

'You must get a buggy, sonny.'

'A buggy? Anything else? As if buggies grew in the brush hills!'

Just then Jeff's sanguine complexion turned grey, and his eyes seemed to slip back into his head. The boy perceived a bulging pocket, out of which he whipped a flask. Jeff took a long drink; then he gasped out: Thunder! you was smart to find that flask. Ah-h-h!'

'You're in a real bad fix,' said the boy.

'I am in bad shape,' Jeff admitted. 'If I'd known I was going to lose the use o' myself like this, I wouldn't ha' been so doggoned keen about my friend leavin' me.'

'Your friend must be in a partic'lar hurry.'

'He was that,' Jeff murmured. A queer buzzing in his ears

1 Copyright, 1904, by Horace Annesley Vachell, in the United States of America.

and an overpowering feeling of giddiness made him close his eyes. When he opened them, the boy had disappeared. Jeff saw that his horse had been tied up in the shade of a scrub-oak. 'That boy seems to have some sense,' he reflected. knock-out, sure.'

'This is a

Again he closed his eyes. A blue jay began to chatter; and when he had finished his screed, a cock quail challenged the silence. Very soon the wilderness was uttering all its familiar sounds. Jeff, lying flat on his back, could hear the rabbits scurrying through the chaparral. After an interminable delay his ears caught the crackle of dry twigs snapped beneath a human foot. 'Feelin' lonesome?'

'I'm mighty glad to see you again,' Jeff admitted. Ah, water! That's a sight better'n whisky.'

He drank thirstily, for the sun was high in the heavens and the road as hot as an oven.

'I reckoned you'd come back,' Jeff continued.

'Why?'

'To earn that dollar.' He eyed the lad's somewhat ragged overalls. Say-what do they call ye to home?'

'Bud.'

'Bud, eh? Short for brother. Folks got a fam❜ly.' He reflected that Bud's sister, if he had one, might be nice-looking. 'Well, Bud, I'm under obligations to ye, for hitchin' up the plug in the shade. 'Twas thoughtful. Where ha' ye been?'

'I've been hunting Dad. But he's off in the hills.

get ye to our camp—'

'The plug 'll have to do it. Unhitch him.'

If I could

Bud untied the animal, who limped even more acutely than his master. Perhaps he lacked that master's grit. Jeff was the colour of parchment when he found himself in the saddle, whereon he sat huddled up, gripping the horn.

'Freeze on,' said the boy.

'You bet,' Jeff replied laconically.

Bud led the horse a few yards down the road, passing from it into the chaparral. Thence, through a tangled wilderness of scrub-oak and manzanita, down a steep slope, into a pretty cañon. 'Here we are.'

A sudden turn of the trail revealed a squatter's hut built of rough lumber and standing beneath a live-oak. A small creek was babbling its way to the Salinas River. The clearing in front of the hut was strewn with empty tins. A tumbledown

shed encircled by a corral was on the other side of the creek. Jeff knew at once that he was looking at one of the innumerable mountain claims taken up by Eastern settlers in the days of the great land boom, and forsaken by them a couple of years afterwards. Jeff slid from the saddle on to his sound leg; then, counting rapidly the shining tins, he said reflectively:

'Bin here about a month, I reckon.' 'Yes-Mister-Sherlock-Holmes.'

Jeff stared. The ragamuffins of the foothills are not in the habit of reading fiction, although lying comes easy to them. 'Kin you read?' said Jeff.

'I-kin,' replied Bud, grinning (he had nice teeth). Kin you?'

'I can cuff a cheeky kid,' said Jeff, scowling.

'But you've got to catch him first.'

The boy laughed gaily, and ran into the house, as Jeff sat down propping his broad back against a tree.

'Things here are not what they seem,' Jeff murmured to his horse, who twitched an intelligent ear, as if he too was well aware that this was no home of squatter or miner. And who else of honest men would choose to live in such a desolate spot?

Presently the boy came back, carrying a feed of crushed barley. Then he unsaddled the horse, watered him, and fed him. Jeff grunted approval.

'You're earnin' that dollar-every cent of it.'

A delightful fragrance of bacon floated to Jeff's nostrils. Evidently provision had been made for man as well as beast. 'That smells mighty good,' said Jeff.

Bud helped him to rise, but after one effort Jeff sank back groaning.

'It's my boot,' he explained. See-I'm wearing a number eight on a number fifteen hoof. W-w-what? Pull it off? Not for ten thousand dollars. We'll cut it off.'

Jeff produced a knife and felt its edge.

'It's sharp,' he said, 'sharp as you, Bud; but-doggone it! I can't use it.'

Bud saw the sweat start on his skin as he tried to pull the injured foot towards him.

'S'pose I do it?' the boy suggested.

'You've not got the nerve, Bud. Why, you're yaller as cheese you poor little cuss.'

'I'm not,' said the boy, flushing suddenly.

He took the knife and began to cut the tough leather: a delicate operation, for Jeff's leg from knee to ankle was terribly swollen. Slowly and delicately the knife did its work. Finally, a horribly contused limb was revealed.

'Cold water-and plenty of it,' murmured Jeff.

'Or hot?'

'Mebbee hot 'd be better.'

Bud disappeared, whistling.

'That boy's earning a five-dollar bill,' said Jeff. I'm a liar

if he ain't as bright as they make 'em.'

The hot water was brought, and some linen.

'I feel a heap better,' Jeff declared presently. 'How about dinner?'

'Bud, if ever I hev a son I hope he'll be jest like you. Sayyou're earning big money-d'ye know it?-and my everlastin' gratitude.'

'That's all right. Hadn't I better bring the grub out here? It's nice and cool under this tree.'

Jeff nodded. The bacon and beans were brought out and consumed. Bud, however, refused to eat. He preferred to wait for his father. Jeff asked some questions, as he stowed away the bacon and beans.

'Your dad must be an awful nice man,' said he.

'He's the best and smartest man in the State,' said Bud proudly.

'Is he! And you two are campin' out for yer health-eh? Ye can't fool me, Bud.'

'Oh!'

'I sized you up at once as a city boy.'

'You're more than half right.'

'I'm all right, Bud. In my business I have to be all right. Bless you, it don't do to make mistakes in my business.'

'And what is your business?'

Jeff beamed. He was certainly a good-looking fellow, and warmed by food and, comparatively speaking, free from pain he was worthy of more than a passing glance.

'I'm deputy sheriff of San Luis Obispo County,' he declared, ' and mighty proud of it.'

'Proud of this yere county?' said the boy, or proud of being dep'ty sheriff?'

By Jing! I'm proud o' both. The county's comin' along fine, and so'm I, Bud. It's a fact, sonny, that I'm held in