this party; and some signals were made which convinced the Texan that he was wanted; and so, without losing time in debate, he and his comrades quickened their pace, crossed the ford, and were soon alongside the farmer. A very few sentences sufficed to convey the position of affairs to the frontiersman; then, with merely an ejaculation of 'Come on, boys!' he turned his horse's head, and followed by his men, rode off at once in the direction of the hills.

'I told you I saw a white man in company with some Apachés,' said Dick, as they pushed on. The farmer assented. Wal,' continued the Texan, 'that white man has been seen with them again; and one of our boys saw him with old Seth Birrable the post-master.'

'Me see strange white man slink into back of post-office this afternoon,' said the Mexican; then he run out of front, and hide and creep in bush till he get away.'

'That Birrable is a bad un,' said the farmer. 'That is so,' assented Dick; and if any harm comes of this business to Mr Arthur, we will lynch him. I had a good mind to take him out to a tree last winter, for I know he was in those horse-robberies. But this time we will string him up for sure.'

A low murmur of approval from his hearers followed this speech; and the party rode on in silence.

The twilight was now beginning to thicken in the distance, shortening the perspective; and as if spurred on by the nearness of night, both horses and men bent to their work with a vigour. They were going over the rough ground with wonderful speed. All at once the Texan, keenly scanning the country towards the hills, suddenly exclaimed, pointing to an open patch which lay between two jutting piles of rocks and mounds: 'By snakes! there's Señor Arthur! You see his gray horse?'

One or two others of the party declared they could just make out in the dim light the figure of a horseman; but from the distance, it was impossible to feel certain. Dick was positive, however, and rising in his stirrup, he gave a loud and peculiar halloo.

'He heard me!' cried the Texan. 'I saw him turn his horse round. Now he goes on again.' A second time the shrill halloo arose; but it was impossible to decide whether the sound reached the rider or not.

Suddenly Cipriano the Mexican cried: 'Señor Gaisford! there is firing in the foot-hills. I hear a shot just now.'

'The Mexican is right!' exclaimed Dick, after a brief, painful pause. 'I heard shots again.Push on, boys! Don't spare your horses!'

Nor did they; and the ground being fortunately level in itself, although of course with an upward slope, they made rapid progress. They had approached nearly to the last spur forming the boundary of the broken country, and were about to enter the pass into which they had seen Arthur ride, when suddenly they heard several other shots fired, and were even near enough to see the flashes.

'Give a shout, boys!' said the Texan; 'it will cheer our friends and frighten our enemies. Now for it!'

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dous yells rang through the night, which must have penetrated far beyond the cañon from which the firing proceeded.

CHAPTER VIII.-CONCLUSION.

It was indeed Arthur whom Texas Dick had seen a few minutes before entering the defile far ahead of them. Till then, the young Englishman's ride had been quite uneventful, and the only cause for anxiety which occurred to him was the rapid approach of nightfall while he had still the roughest and most uneven portion of his route before him. As he rode into the defile through which he was now passing, the twilight became deeper, from the narrowness of the pass and the height of the rocks on each side of him. He had therefore to concentrate his attention on the difficult path over which his horse was picking its way; and it was only after he had ridden right into the pass that something startled him, and he looked eagerly up and around. His quick eye made him fancy that he saw something move where the shadows were darkest, and he shouted to know if any human being were there. For a moment, as he listened, there was no response, no murmur, no flap of night-hawk's wing to break the gloomy silence; then, all at once, a flash lit up the rocks just in front of him, and a report followed. Instantly he drew his own revolver, but as he did so, two more bright flashes dazzled him; a stunning shock told him he was hit, while his horse fell dead under him, shot through the head.

When Arthur and his horse fell, three heads, cautiously lifted above a parapet of rock, witnessed the effect of the volley.

'Bueno! my boys!' exclaimed one, a white man-Señor Tony; he is down; but I doubt if he is dead. Hurry to him; finish your work, and the fifty dollars and the keg are yours to-night.'

The Indians gave a grunt of assent, and springing to their feet, were emerging from the rocks behind which they stood, when Pedro stopped as suddenly as though he had been petrified.

'What is the matter?' exclaimed the impatient white man. 'Lose no time, or he will recover, and give us trouble.'

'Oye! Listen!' said Pedro. 'Cavallos!-horses come!'

Tony listened. He heard, surely enough, the gallop of a horse, and at the rate it was travelling, it was plain it would be within the defile directly.

There is only one,' whispered Tony. 'Fire as he comes out of the shade.' But the Indians either considered that this was not in the bond, or, as was more likely, were unwilling to run any fresh risks; so the party listened to the gallop of the rapidly approaching rider. As they did so, to Tony's alarm he heard Arthur groan and move; signs that he was regaining his conscious

ness.

'Another moment,' he muttered, and he will be on his feet, and ready to fight.'

The deadened clatter of the horse's hoofs as it came through the gorge was now changed to a clearer ring; the rider had gained the open space, and was free from the close reverberation

'What do I see?' exclaimed Tony. A woman! Rachel! Next moment, turning to the Indians, he said 'Don't hurt her; but take her horse, so that she can't hurry back. The fond fool! to come here.'

In the meantime, Rachel had come near enough to see the prostrate figures of Arthur and the horse. With a slight and instantly repressed scream, she reined up, and leaped from her pony. The Indians, who had now cleared the ridge, gave a hideous shout and rushed down the slope towards her; but the delay, brief as it had been, was fatal to their purpose. Their shout was answered with whoops from the opposite side of the gorge, and three flashes at once broke forth from the darkness behind the girl, and the bullets which followed them struck the rocks against which the Apachés could be seen descending. The Indians immediately turned and fled, disappearing in an instant among the rocks.

Before Rachel had time to realise the terrible situation in which she stood, she heard a deep guttural voice behind her exclaim: 'Señorita Rachel, yo Cuervo!' [I am Cuervo !]

"Thank heaven!' cried the girl, as she turned round and saw the friendly Uté. 'Oh, come to me, Cuervo; Señor Arthur is dying!'

The next instant, Cuervo and his two stalwart sons were by her side, assisting to disengage Arthur from his dead horse. The young man was able to speak as they did so, and to assure Rachel that he was not seriously hurt.

As he spoke, the sudden clatter of a body of horse was heard upon the stony ground close by; and then, with loud shouts, the party under the farmer and Texas Dick rode up. The men immediately dismounted; lights were struck, and Rachel was in the arms of her father. It seemed that the courage which had sustained her so long, deserted her all at once, for she clung to her father and sobbed hysterically.

There was little time, however, for the indulgence of sentiment, because, as Texas Dick said: "There ain't no telling where the scallawags may be, or how many of 'em. First thing we know may be a shot, so we will make tracks.'

The dead horse having been quickly stripped of its saddle and headgear, and Arthur mounted behind one of the party, Cuervo and his sons being similarly accommodated, they at once rode

off.

All this took place in a fraction of the time required for its narration; and it was not till the party had got out of reach of further attack, that Cuervo began to explain how he had arrived so opportunely. Reducing his narrative to the plainest and briefest form, it appeared that he had long been expecting some such attack upon Arthur, as he had seen Señor Tony in company with two Apachés when the rest of the tribe were on the hunt; and these Apachés being frequently intoxicated, had dropped words which fired the suspicions of Cuervo. He had learned enough to assure him that Arthur would be waylaid on a particular night, which, as the reader will guess, was the night when the Uté had presented himself with his sons so unexpectedly, and acted as body-guard to Arthur until the latter was in safety. On this present day, Cuervo

and his sons had been in the foot-hills, where they discovered Tony in consultation with the Apachés. Lurking behind a convenient tree, Cuervo overheard that a plot was on foot to decoy Arthur thither that night and kill him. He accordingly went down into the plains, and meeting Cipriano, who, he knew, was often at the Gaisford Ranche, gave him the message which the Mexican had faithfully tried to deliver; then returning, the Utés determined to watch Tony and his confederates.

Not daring to follow the latter too closely, Cuervo had slightly mistaken the direction in which they entered the broken country, so was for a time thrown out. He and his sons, however, had a pretty sure guess as to the spot where the ambuscade would be laid, and they had just worked their way to its vicinity when they heard the first shots. Directly afterwards, Miss Rachel passed them, galloping in the direction of the firing. They followed her, and would have been by her side in a couple of minutes; but the whoop of the Apachés, as they descended the rocks, told to Indian ears that no time was to be lost, and that even the two minutes could not be risked. So they fired as truly as they could in the direction of Tony's yelling accomplices.

Rachel's arrival had clearly saved Arthur's life, by alarming the suspicious Apachés. But for this, even Cuervo's intervention would have been too late. Arthur, in spite of his wound-for he had experienced a very narrow escape, a bullet having ploughed its track along his scalp-found an opportunity for saying as much to Rachel, as they rode through the darkness towards the Holt Ranche, where they arrived to find the farmer lost in wonder as to where Dick and his men could be gone.

On hearing details of the expedition, Mr Holt became excessively wroth, and vowed he would not rest until the mean trash of whites and the bad Indians were hunted out of the neighbourhood.

"They say this white man is known; in fact, it's certain,' interposed Texas Dick, on his employer pausing for an instant.

Who is he?' demanded the farmer. If he's alive in the territory after to-morrow, he will have to hide pretty close, for I'll hunt him as if he was a wild-cat.'

'Wal, then, it's your other nephew, Tony,' said Dick bluntly. There's a good many of the boys who mean to draw a trigger on him at sight, so you can leave him to them.'

Holt was literally staggered at hearing this, for he reeled and caught at a chair. If he were ten times my nephew,' he exclaimed at last, after a pause which was very painful to every one present, he dies if I meet him.-But tell me now, some of you, what ground you have for saying this murderer was Anthony Derring.'

This testimony was soon forthcoming; and it appeared from the remarks made during the narration, that the young man in question had once been a resident at the Holt Ranche, where he was high in favour with the farmer, and looked upon himself, there was little doubt, as Mr Holt's destined heir. His conduct, however, had grown very bad, far exceeding, indeed, the tolerably wide latitude allowed out West;' and finally, being conclusively proved to have taken part in

its title, such as Familiar Latin and French Quotations, &c., contains a number of well-known and interesting books. There are, for instance, Charles Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare; J. B. Selkirk's Bible Truths with Shakspearian Parallels; Dr Johnson's philosophical romance of the Abyssinian prince, Rasselas; De Quincey's wonderful Confessions of an English Opium-eater; and many others. The volumes are small and handy in form, printed in good type, and cheap-three qualities which should commend them to many readers, especially those of the pedestrian order.

*

Yet this

Of all games in this country, Bowling, as practised out of doors, is among the most innocent and least harmful, in every sense. agreeable pastime as practised indoors had at one time a very bad name, so much so, that certain Acts of parliament had to be launched against it. Nor were even these discharges of legal artillery sufficient to check the evils of gambling with which the fair character of the game had become tainted. In the time of Henry VIII. the game was classed among unlawful amusements, and bowling-alleys were proscribed by statutes which were directed against all who either played in such places or kept them for profit. It was allowable, however, for artisans and servants to play at the game during Christmas-time in their masters' houses and presence; while persons who were worth more than one hundred pounds per annum might obtain a license for playing within their own domain. But notwithstanding these restrictions the game still retained its popularity, and worked as much evil as before. Writing some forty years after the above Acts were passed, an English author says that 'common bowlingalleys are privy moths that eat up the credit of many idle citizens, whose gains at home are not able to weigh down their losses abroad; whose shops are so far from maintaining their play, that their wives and children cry out for bread, and go to bed supperless often in the year.'

as

The game, however, as practised in the open air, has long since cleared itself of any such stigma as anciently attached to its indoor cousin, and is now, as already said, as much dissociated from any idea of vicious betting or gambling any game of skill can possibly be. For those who are unable to engage in the more active athletic exercises, bowling is at once a safe and an agreeable recreation, as is testified by its numerous votaries, who derive pleasure and mild relaxation from the pastime. Like other games of skill, it has its code of laws, written and unwritten; and a knowledge of these laws by the frequenters of bowling-greens and by members of bowling-clubs, is the best preventive of misunderstandings, and saves the unnecessary cropping-up of disputed ends.' An excellent little book on the laws and rules of the game is the Manual of Bowl-playing, by W. W. Mitchell, Millport (London and Manchester: John Heywood). It contains the laws of the game, rules for bowling-clubs, suggestions for the making and keeping of greens, and an appendix giving the results of the chief tournaments and matches during the last few years. The little book pre

tends to nothing beyond being a useful and handy guide to the game of bowling, and in so doing it pretends to nothing more than its contents will justify.

We have from time to time drawn the atten

tion of our readers to the publication of books intended for the simplification and advancement of science-knowledge; and in this category of useful and compendious works must be classed that of Dr Andrew Wilson, F.R.S.E., entitled Leaves from a Naturalist's Note-book (London: Chatto and Windus). The book, as the author points out, is made up of a series of sketches, compiled chiefly because of the existence of a growing taste on the part of the cultured public for a knowledge of the objects in which the naturalist professess an interest. While such books are essentially imperfect in point of fullness and exhaustiveness, they at the same time serve a purpose which more full and exhaustive treatises would fail to accomplish, in so far as they engage the interest of the non-scientific reader, and may in many cases lead the way and prepare the mind for higher scientific studies. In consistence with the object which the author had in view, there is nothing in this little volume which any reader of average intelligence might not comprehend, while there is much which even readers of some degree of scientific culture will heartily appreciate and enjoy. In addition to chapters devoted to such subjects as jelly-fishes, the threads and thrums' of spider-existence, skates and rays, whales and their neighbours, kangaroos, barnacles, and flies, there are papers of a more general kind, treating of such subjects as the office of science in the elucidation of crime and the convic tion of the criminals; the exposure of medical quackery; scientific ghosts; food and fasting, and the like. The diversity, within certain limits, of the subjects treated in the book is such as to render it scarcely possible for any one to take it up even for a few spare minutes without finding something to interest, instruct, or

amuse.