The story is written in what was left in the glen.

The Indians saw the white man come around the bend of the hill far above. The canyon was a perfect place for ambush. Riding in the stillness is drowsy work. The solitary prospector comes on with his rifle hanging carelessly before him. Down the trail he comes, past the grease-wood patch to the water-hole in the gully. His animals are hot and tired. He loosens the girth and leads them to the pool.

Out of the quiet, crashing like a thunder-clap, comes the first shot. He springs to his horse and his rifle flies to his shoulder. He knows what has happened, and knows that unless his horse can carry him back through a storm of bullets the way he came he has passed his last day on earth.

But the sudden shot has startled the horse. A jerk has freed the bridle and in an instant he is galloping up the hill, the saddle turning under him.

Then it is die game or die coward.

The white man jerks the lever of his Winchester. The cartridge catches-a twig has perhaps got in among the bearings.

They see that he cannot shoot-his pistol went off with the saddle and now he is standing unarmed among the jeering Indians.

There are no white man's bones by the skeleton of the pack-mule. Die game or die coward! It was no easy, quick death by a bullet that the man who tied that pack had to meet.

Quarter of a mile down the canyon that trail runs up on to a knoll. Down there are bones. A skull is there with its face buried in the soil. Those little lumps made the spine of the man who was caught in the ambush.

If you search close you will find the rest of the man's frame stretched out there.

What was once a rope is there. It is knotted back of the skull and the other end is fast in the bush. If you cared to scratch among those bones you would find some small strips of rawhide. He died with his hands fast behind him.

But what is this lace-like line and delicate framework of slender bone that lies close to the skull?

When the Apaches closed in on their victim he fought

hard. But how long can one man fight against a score?

Struggle as he will, he is soon overcome, and, with his hands bound so tight that the cords cut into them, they force him ahead of them up the knoll.

They find a bush strong enough to hold him, and with his own lash-rope they tie him to it. But four feet of slack rope is between him and the stake. Even with his hands tied behind him he might be able to free himself, so they force him to the ground and tie his feet to another stake.

If they simply meant to leave him there to starve and die under the hot skies they would have maimed his feet and maybe hands. There would be no need of tying him.

A shout from some of the Indians makes him try to look up. Some of them are coming toward him. They have a stick with a little noose on the end and in the noose is one of the rattlesnakes of the rocks. Now he knows how they are going to kill him. Through the skin and muscles of the snake close to the rattles they put two long, thin buckskin thongs. The serpent squirms with the pain of it, but they hold his head fast in the loop. They tie the loose ends of the thongs around the stake and jump back. The snake is free from the noose, but bound fast by the cords through its tail.

Directly before it is the face of the white man. In an instant the snake is in a half coil, his rattles going faster and faster.

The prostrate man closes his eyes. Maybe he screamed, maybe he fainted, maybe he simply waited for the feel of the serpent's fangs.

Like a flash the flat head of the snake shoots out. The cord stood its spring. It falls two inches short of the white face.

Two tiny liquid drops come against his face and run down into his beard. It is the venom from the fangs that failed to reach. The Indians roar with laughter.

But they have wasted much time. The troops are after them. They pick their victim, they tease the snake, and then leave him.

All the hot afternoon he lies there, the snake's head playing before his eyes, more of the venom being spat into his face.

The sun set and the clouds covered the heavens.

The snake has learned that it cannot reach that face. It lies coiled at the foot of the stake watching. For a while longer it strikes whenever the man moves his head, but after a while it lies in its sullen coil.

Oh, the strain of holding his head back, back, until the cords fairly crack! How long was it before his mind gave way and madness released him from his deadly terror?

Now the rain begins to fall and it is growing dark. The coolness revives the man, but still before him he sees those coils and that flat head. The snake's linelike tongue is darting out; he will try it again.

He strikes, but still he cannot reach. An inch more and his fangs would have reached the bound man.

He rubs his face in the dirt to clear it of that horrible poison that is thickening on it.

Still it rains; it is so dark that he cannot see the snake; but the rattle tells him that it is still there.

He must have been unconscious, but he wakes up and feels the strain of the rope. He has been pulling back on it with all his force, but now he feels a counterpull that draws him toward the rattlesnake and death. Why doesn't he push his face within reach of the snake and end it? He knew he was going to die from the moment his rifle failed to work. He knows that he must die of thirst, even if the snake does not reach him. But he cannot do it. His mad brain refuses to order the muscles to meet the snake.

The rope pulls harder. He knows now. The rain is wetting it and shrinking it. It will drag him up. Two inches more is death.

He digs his toes into the ground. He pulls back until the rope sinks into his flesh. The rope gets shorter.

The rain has wet the buckskin thongs that hold the snake. The buckskin swells and stretches, while the hempen rope shrinks. Those cords that hold the snake are four inches longer than they were when they were tied. The rope has shrunk half as much.

The snake tries to crawl away. The strings in its flesh hold it back. The pain enrages it and it strikes. The coyotes prowl about the spot; the vultures hover over it. The white skull lies with its face in the dust and the dry, lace-like snake skin, with the delicate bones below, lie against it.

The beautiful and perfectly simple love-story, without silliness or conventionalitics or morbidness, is the rarest kind of stories in the Club's whole collection. But there is no such story in modern literature prettier than this simple little one by, Alphonse Daudet.

LOVE AND STARS.

WHEN I watched the flock upon the Luberon I remained whole weeks without seeing a living soul, alone in the pasturage with my dog Labri and my sheep. From time to time the hermit of Mont de l'Ure passed there to look for medicinal herbs, or I saw the black face of some Piedmont collier; but they were simple souls, silent by dint of solitude, having lost the taste for talking and knowing nothing of what was said down in the villages and towns. Hence every two weeks, when I heard upon the ascending highway the bells of our farm mule, bringing me my provisions for the coming fortnight, and saw gradually appear from below, the lively countenance of the little farm boy or the red locks of old Aunt Norade, I was indeed delighted. I made the visitor tell me the news of the country at the foot of the mountain--the baptisms, the marriages, but that which interested me most of all was what had happened to my master's daughter, our Demoiselle Stephanette, the prettiest girl for ten leagues around.

Without appearing to be too much bent upon acquiring this knowledge I gathered information as to whether she went a great deal to parties and evening assemblies; whether new admirers were still thronging about her, and should you ask me what good those details could do me, a poor shepherd of the mountain, I will reply that I was twenty years old, and that Stephanette was in my eyes the handsomest creature on the face of God's earth.

Now, one Sunday when I was waiting for my provisions, it so chanced that they did not arrive until very late. In the morning I said to myself: "It is the fault of the high mass;' then toward noon a heavy storm came on and I thought that the mule had been unable to set out because of the bad condition of the road. At last, about three o'clock in the afternoon, the sky

having cleared and the mountain being all of a glitter with water and sunlight, I heard, amid the droppings from the leaves and the overflowing of the swollen brooks, the bells of the mule, as gay and brisk as a grand church chime on Easter day.

But it was neither the little farm boy nor old Aunt Norade who was urging the animal along. It was— guess who? Our demoiselle, my friends—our demoiselle herself, seated right between the osier baskets, all rosy with the mountain air and the coolness brought on by the storm.

The little farm boy was sick; Aunt Norade was absent on a holiday visit to her children. Pretty Stephanette told me all this as she sprang down from her mule, and also that she was late in arriving because she had lost her way. But to see her so finely dressed, with her flowered ribbons, her brilliant skirt and her lace, she had rather the air of having lingered at some dance than of having sought for her road among the bushes.

Oh, the delicious creature! My eyes could not grow weary of gazing at her. It is true that I had never seen her so near. Sometimes during the winter, when the flock had gone down into the plain and I had returned in the evening to the farm-house to sup, she passed briskly through the hall, without talking much to the servants, always bedecked and a trifle haughty. Now I had her there before me, for myself alone. Was it not enough to turn my head?

When she had taken the provisions from the basket Stephanette began to look curiously around her. Raising a little her Sunday skirt, that might otherwise have become stained with mud, she entered the fold. She wished to see the corner where I slept, the pile of straw that was my bed, my sheepskin covering, my big cape hung against the wall, my crook and my flintlock gun. All this amused her.

"So it is here you live, is it, my poor shepherd?" said she, with a heavenly smile. "How tired you must get of always being alone. What do you do? What do you think about?'

I had a strong desire to reply, “About you, mistress," and I should have told the truth, but my confusion was so great that I could not find a single word. I think she noticed this, and that the mischievous creature took