Part 49 (1/2)

He suddenly leaped to his feet.

”They are coming!”

Listening a moment intently, he cried:

”There it is again--the scream of fifes from the hills!--now, they are driving in the pickets--hear the crack of those rifles!--G.o.d in heaven, isn't it music!”

He sank back on the cot with a sob of joy.

In a rush the troops surrounded the jail. The sheriff lifted his hand and shouted:

”In the name of the peace and dignity of the State of California----”

Wolf answered with a defiant wave and charged at the head of his guard. The soldiers poured into their ranks a deadly fire. At the first volley the leader fell. The charging column hesitated, halted, threw down their arms, and surrendered.

In five minutes Colonel Worth entered the jail and father and son silently embraced. Barbara followed and Norman clasped her in his arms.

A shout rose from the troops and the group within moved to the prison window. The colour-sergeant had hauled down the red ensign of Socialism from the flag-staff on the lawn and lifted the Stars and Stripes in its place.

Norman's hand sought his father's. They clasped a moment tremblingly, and, still looking through the barred window at the s.h.i.+ning emblem in the sky, the young man slowly said:

”It _is_ beautiful, isn't it Governor!”

THE END

BOOKS ON NATURE STUDY BY

CHARLES G.D. ROBERTS

Handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.

=THE KINDRED OF THE WILD. A Book of Animal Life. With ill.u.s.trations by Charles Livingston Bull.=

Appeals alike to the young and to the merely youthful-hearted. Close observation. Graphic description. We get a sense of the great wild and its denizens. Out of the common. Vigorous and full of character. The book is one to be enjoyed; all the more because it smacks of the forest instead of the museum. John Burroughs says ”The volume is in many ways the most brilliant collection of Animal Stories that has appeared. It reaches a high order of literary merit.”

=THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD. Ill.u.s.trated.=

This book strikes a new note in literature. It is a realistic romance of the folk of the forest--a romance of the alliance of peace between a pioneer's daughter in the depths of the ancient wood and the wild beasts who felt her spell and became her friends. It is not fanciful, with talking beasts; nor is it merely an exquisite idyll of the beasts themselves. It is an actual romance, in which the animal characters play their parts as naturally as do the human. The atmosphere of the book is enchanting. The reader feels the undulating, whimpering music of the forest, the power of the shady silences, the dignity of the beasts who live closest to the heart of the wood.

=THE WATCHERS OF THE TRAILS. A companion volume to the ”Kindred of the Wild.” With 48 full page plates and decorations from drawings by Charles Livingston Bull.=