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"Doc," said Hank, "we've just found out about it!"

"I've knowed it a long time," said I coldly. "What is it?"

"This lawsuit," said Hank--"is it over, or still running?"

"It's still running," I said. "Listen at the machinery rumble up there.

It's all over but the shouting, and we've got a man hired to do that.

Why?"

They never said a word, but scooted up the stairs. I strolled in and found Mac's machinery throwed out of gear by Hank's interruption. Hen was still collapsed, and didn't see Hank. Mac turned grandly to the judge, and told him that a witness he had been laboring to secure the attendance of from outside the jurisdiction had blowed in, and he wanted the case reopened. Smythe rose buoyantly into the air and hooted, but Brockway coldly reopened the case, and Hank was sworn. The juror that wrote on his cuff looked disgusted, but he wrote Hank's name and age with the rest of his notes.

"Where do you live?" asked Mac.

"South Dakota," answered Hank.

"Examine 'Exhibit A,'" said Mac proudly, handing Hank the note, "and tell the jury when if ever you have seen it before!"

"When it was signed," said Hank.

Old Hen kind of straightened up. Fanny sat down by him, and put her arm about him. She sure did look pretty.

"Who signed that note?" asked Mac, with his voice swelling like a double B-flat bass tuba.

"I did," answered Hank.

"I object," yelled Smythe, trembling like a leaf.

"Overruled," said Brockway in a kind of tired way.

"Do you owe this note?" asked Mac.

"You bet I do," answered Hank, "and got the money to pay it. I went to Dakota and forgot about the darned note. Bloxham shipped the machinery out there to me. It's my note all right; Hen Peters never saw it till Smythe got it."

The room was full of wilted experts. This did not appeal to them at all.

McKenzie laughed fiendishly, as if he'd had this thing arranged all the time. The jury looked foolish, all but the one that hollered "Whay!"

and he looked mad. I could see Hen reviving, and throwing off his grouch at Hank. Fillmore Smythe said he had a question or two in cross-examination.

"What kin are you to the defendant?" he asked.

"That's a disputed point," replied Hank. "I dunno's I'm any by blood."

"Are you not related to him in any way?" asked Fillmore, prying into things the way they do.

"You bet I am," spoke up Hank, looking over at Fanny, and getting red in the face. "He don't know about it; but since night before last I've been his son-in-law."

CHAPTER X

It was in camp at Sulphur Mountain that the Artist's fate overtook him.

The gods pulled his name from the hat by the hard hand of the Hired Man.

This mystic event overshadowed the visit to Sulphur Spring--though that was in every respect a success. It was timed so as to give them the last of the dawn--the splendid flood of rare light which precedes the first cast of his noose by the Hunter of the East--and both eye and camera caught beautifully the myriads of steam spirals ascending from the hill, each from its own vent. The spring itself, the Poet compared to the daily press, in that it made a mighty and unceasing pother and dribbled out a mighty small amount of run-off--and that the output stained everything with which it came in contact a bright yellow.

"No matter what it splashes," said he, "stick or stone, church, family or court, it yellows it."

"Speaking of courts," said the Artist, "and the law--I think our friends the Colonel and Bill have dealt altogether too flippantly with them. I shall give you another view to-night."

"Do you notice," said the Bride, "how peaceful and sort of comforting the river is? It is as placid as a lake--or some deep river--like the Thames--made for pleasure boats and freighters."

"See the trout leap!" shouted the Colonel.

"Well," said Aconite, "you jest watch that river, an' it'll surprise yeh. It ain't reformed yit, if it hez sobered up. An' right here--Whoa!"

They were at the crossing of Alum Creek, and Aconite halted to point out matters of interest.

"Right hyar," said he, "or in this vicinity, took place one of the most curious things that ever happened to Old Jim Bridger. This crick is all alum, 'specially up at the head. Over yon"--pointing to the eastern bank of the Yellowstone with his whip--"is a stream named Sour Crick comin'

in from the east. It's one or the other of these cricks, 'r one of the same kind, that Old Jim Bridger was obliged to go up f'r three days on his bronk, one time. It was a long trip. But on the way back he noticed that the crick had flooded the country, an' gone down ag'in, an' it seemed to him that he was makin' better time than goin' up. The hills that was low an' rounded when he went up, looked to him steeper, and higher, an' more clustered than they was. He didn't believe this could be, an' wondered how folks' minds acted when they was goin' crazy.

Finely, he found his first camp, after he had been on the back track only half a day. He couldn't understand how he could've made the distance in four hours that it took two days to cover comin' up, and begun to get the Willies. He come to a bottom that had scattered trees on comin' up, and it was timbered so thick now that he couldn't go through it--but it wa'n't furder through than a hedge fence. Then he noticed that his bronk was hobblin', and observed that his hooves was drawed down to mere points, but good-shaped hoss's hooves all the same--they was just little, like the hooves of a toy hoss. At last he come to a place whar there had been two great boulders that had been forty rods apart when he went up--he knowed 'em by marks he had made on 'em in his explorin' around--an' danged if they wasn't jammed up agin'

each other so's they touched both stirrups when he rode through between 'em. An' there he was back whar he started from in a little more'n half a day. He got to studyin' it over, an' found that this crick of alum water had over-flowed and jest puckered the scenery up, so that the distances to anywhere along its valley was shrunk up to most nothin'!"

The Hired Man looked away off to the east, and mentioned that the fish-hawks were thick this morning. The Bride giggled a very slight giggle--but the others were impassive. They seemed to be absorbing some of the taciturnity of the Indian. In the meantime the river did begin to surprise them. After miles of deep quiet, its valley walls began to crowd together.

"Somebody has been sprinkling alum on this scenery," suggested the Colonel--"eh, Aconite?"

Aconite clucked solemnly to the team.

The road was forced to the very edge of the bank. The river became mildly excited, as if in protest at the constriction. The road grew wilder and the landscape more rugged; and suddenly, the river, tortured by the pressure of the narrow trench provided for it, began raging and foaming, and sending up a hoarse roar, which grew upon them like an approaching tempest. The road trod first a narrow shelf above the terrific rapids, and then a bridge hung like a stretched rope over an awesome abyss. For half a mile the tumult below grew, until it seemed as if water could bear no more--when suddenly the river, just now ravening through a mere fifty-foot crack in the rocks, was gone. It turned abruptly away from the road, and fell away into space. They had passed the Upper Falls, where the Yellowstone, in a great spouting curve drops a sheer hundred and twelve feet in a curtain of white water, and sends up from the bottom of the canon its hymn to liberty, in a cloud of mist.

They were no longer the tired sight-seers, with jaded senses; for this was new. They felt the thrill of power. And as they passed on, promising themselves a return when camp should be made, they cried out in delight as the Grand Canon of the Yellowstone displayed the stupendous sluiceway into which the river had fallen. At their feet the lovely Crystal Falls of Cascade Creek played exquisitely, almost unnoted. The roar of the falls followed them to the Canon Hotel near which they camped, and leaving the pitching of the tents to the men, they walked to the brink of the canon, and gazed upon the most perfect scene, perhaps, that water, in its flow to the sea, has anywhere sculptured and painted to delight the eye of man. The Yosemite has greater heights; the Colorado offers huger dimensions, the Niagara or the Victoria possess mightier cataracts; but nowhere else is there such a riot of color, such dizzy heights, such glooming verdure, and such mad waters, united in one surpassingly splendid scenic whole.

They saw it all--that day, and subsequent days. They lingered as though unable to leave at all. They revisited the Upper Falls before seeing the lower, so as to view them in fairness and with no injustice to what seemed unsurpassable beauty.

"And now," said the Bride, "take me to the greater falls."

It was as if she had seen all but the Holy of Holies, and felt the exaltation suitable for higher things.

They were amazed at the tremendous plunge of more than three hundred feet which their river (as they now called it) made at the Lower Falls--even to the foot of which they descended. They looked from Inspiration Point, from Artist's Point, from Lookout Point. They watched the stream dwarfed by distance to a trickle, and strangely silent, as it wandered at the bottom of the gorge.

And at last the time came to leave. Early in the morning they were to start; and the last camp-fire was smoldering to ashes on that last night when the Artist found his audience collected, the demand for payment of his obligation presented; and without preface, save the statement that his was the story of a young fool, told his tale.

THE RETURN OF JOHN SMITH

THE STORY NARRATED BY THE ARTIST

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