"Twenty dollars, for only ten or fifteen minutes," I replied; and, without waiting for him to accept the terms, I dropped into the skiff, and ordered him to pull away. He seemed disposed to chaffer for higher terms; but I chanced to be in travelling costume, with a loaded revolver in my belt, and, drawing the "persuader," I said, sternly:

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Quick, now! If lives are lost through your negligence, your own shall pay the forfeit."

With a glance at me which did not imply cowardice, but rather a graceful yielding of his self-interest to the necessities of the case, the boatman struck out with all his might, and in a few minutes we had lifted Endicott and his charge into the skiff, and were pulling to the land. The woman was insensible, and there was a gash on the side of her head from which some blood flowed; but she seemed to have escaped scalding, and I believed she would soon be restored. From the position in which Endicott had held her, he could not have seen her face; but when I took her head upon my lap, and turned her countenance upward, he looked upon it fairly. "My Mary! O my God, my Mary!" he exclaimed, and fell in a swoon. The excitement and sudden joy had overcome him.

It was not a pleasant position for the boatman and myself, in a small skiff with two Insensible people requiring instant attention, and liable to become hysterical upon their recovery of consciousness. On the whole, however, they were best unconscious until we got them to land, where I found plenty of assistance to take care of them, while my boatman, having first received his promised fee, went off in search of further victims. We had to work very carefully to restore the pair to their senses, and then had much ado to make them retain them; but in the course of time we got them in a fit state to be introduced to each other, a ceremony which was eventually performed with much tact and delicacy, by a person much better qualified for the task than I considered myself; and we left the reunited turtle-doves (for it was indeed Endicott's ancient flame whom he had, as it were, miraculously rescued from the devouring flood) billing and cooing to gether as cosily as if their separation had endured but for a day.

How strange it is, and how fortunate, that love, and joy, and happiness, and pleasure are so long and vividly remembered, while it costs us an effort to remember our disagreeable experiences!

I soon learned all that I cared to know of the circumstances that led to the reunion. Mary's parents had emigrated with her to a remote part of the country, where they had prospered well for a time; but reverses having come upon them, they had finally resolved to try the panacea for pecuniary troubles-California. They had been for a short time located upon a ranch near Sacramento, and Mary, at the time of the fearful explosion, was returning from a visit to an old friend in San Francisco. During all these years she had mourned her lost love, and remained faithful to it; but her grief was lightened by the assurance given her by Eudicott, senior, that her lover's interests had been promoted and his lasting happiness secured by her relinquishment of him.

Our boat, of course, remained at Benicia until the officers and crew had done everything they could to relieve and assist the unfortunate victims of the disaster, and then pursued her way to San Francisco, the reunited lovers being among her passengers. They seemed so full of happiness that I thought it would be cruel to separate them for a single night; and on arriving in San Francisco, I had them driven in a carriage straight to the residence of a clergyman of my acquaintance, whom I called out of bed to perform the marriage ceremony. It was a little risky to give away so handsome a bride to a man of Endicott's habits; but I had great confidence in his recuperative powers, and he did credit to my judgment. On learning of his marriage, his father "did the handsome" by him; and the young folks are now enjoying matrimonial felicity in one of the best swell-fronts in Boston; Endicott being regarded on 'Change as eminently solid, while his lovely wife graces a parlor in a style that even her aristocratic sisters cannot find fault with. I've just been to see them, and to make a little present to their oldest sonGeorge Wilson (mind, it is not George Washington) Endicott, who has attained his tenth year under very promising conditions.

LIKE a great tree Umphqua River sprangles out into a thousand branches, and finds its source in dense forests of pine and fir timber, situated on the western slope of the Cascade Mountains, where the fleeing game often hear the roaring of the large yellow lions and brown cougars that still stroll unmolested through canyons, gorges and groves that have never yet resounded with the echo of the woodman's axe, and where many unprospected quartz lodes still lie buried deep under the soil. After tumbling, roaring and racketing down these steeps, the Umphqua quietly glides through two beautiful valleys, which are bounded on either side by low rolling hills. These hills are covered with short bunch-grass, on which thousands of sheep feed, in different bands, while in every direction for many miles rise groves of noble oaks. Not a shrub, or bush, or small tree of any kind can be seen on the wide rolling carpet except the oaks. The villages of Roseburg, Oakland and others, add beauty to the enchanting landscape. With the exception of January in each year, frost is never seen here; the only disadvantage being a deposit of sticky loam, about two feet deep, which spreads all over the country and renders it unfit for agriculture.

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Cougars and California lions infest the region where the Umphqua has its source. The surface of the country is so broken, rough and covered with underbrush, that it is not often any one is found so adventurous

as to care to search over it, but occasionally the cougars pass down towards the coast on the spurs of the Cascades, such as the Katapoia and Canyon Mountains, always avoiding the open country among the valleys, and low rolling hills.

The manner of despatching the cougars is as follows: The hunter takes his rifle, and with several powerful hounds follows the animal's trail until the dogs stop and give a warning cry. This is a sure indication that the cougar is in a tree close by. If such is the case, the hunter makes a fire and waits till daylight, to bring his game down by a rifle-ball.

One summer the predatory lions killed all the dogs at Gallice Creek, which is forty miles nearer the coast than the country before described. The last one destroyed was a very powerful dun-colored mastiff, that was thought to be a match for any beast. He was left out one night by his owners, who thought if a lion came near, the dog would fight it; but the mastiff gave only one short yelp and succumbed to his adversary. About three miles from the place not long after, a hunter saw two lions lying down together under a tree; he shot one, which immediately rolled over and over to the foot of the mountain. The other got up, looked slowly round as if surprised, and then walked off without seeing the hunter who was stationed behind a tree. The one shot measured exactly nine feet in length from tip to tip, and was afterwards stuffed. ELIJAH CHANEY.

ALL the way up the sands Dick scarcely spoke, and at last a silence fell on me, too, a silence that was neither sad nor dull for all I liked being merry so well. Only at the gate I said lightly, trying to cheat my own heart of its consciousness as well as hide it from him, "What's come to you, Dick, that you're so still? You're not angry with me?"

I don't know what he answered-I don't know even as he spoke at all-I only remember a hand-clasp that hurt my hand and warmed my heart, a kiss at once fierce and tender, and a moment after I broke away from him, and running swiftly up the path stood alone at the door with my heart beating so fast and high that I fancied anybody might hear it, and so I stopped a little outside to hush it.

It was only the first of September, but the evenings get chilly early down by the sea; besides, Aunt Nabby had come over, and she was always cold, let others be as they might, so mother'd built a little fire upon the hearth, and the curtains were up, so, though there was no lamp lit, the flame showed the room inside to me, standing in the outer dark, just as if it had been a picture. Aunt Nabby sat at the corner of the hearth, huddled together in a miserable dreary sort of a way, with her thin hands spread over the blaze, while mother had found the stocking I'd left on some table or chair perhaps, or maybe on the floor even, and was kneeling on the hearth for better light as she patiently picked up the dropped stitches.

Likely enough they were talking all the while, but I had stood there some minutes without consciously hearing a word, when suddenly I came to myself, and Aunt Nabby was saying:

"Don't yer let him have her, Mary. It's wait and watch, watch and wait, and never know whether you're a wife or widow, O Lord! I've laid awake so many nights a-listenin' to the wind blowin,' and shiverin' for his sake, the sounds never got out of my ears, and I'm allers and forever a-shakin'. O dear! O dear!" she moaned, rocking herself drearily to and fro.

Aunt Nabby was never any too good com

pany, but I thought, as I looked at her through the window, that she never before appeared quite so dismal and forlorn to me. The very sight of her cast a shadow over my happy heart like a cloud that sails across the sun. "Why need she come croaking here this night of nights!" I said to myself, and then I lifted the latch and went in.

The blaze upon the hearth had died down so that the room was worse than dark-just light enough to show black shadows lurking in every corner.

"Why don't you have a light, mother?" I said, impatiently. "Where's the matches?" fumbling away at the mantel shelf.

"Yes, yes," said Aunt Nabby, "young folks likes it to be light and gay, but I tell you, Clary, the sun wont foller you no more than it does anybody else, if you set your foot in dark ways."

By the time she'd done speaking I had struck a light and thrown a bit of dry wood on the fire, and things didn't look quite so dismal, and I had a sort of curiosity to know what special wickedness she thought there'd be in my marrying Dick Wayne, supposing he asked me, which wasn't so very unlikely, I thought to myself, remembering, with a little echoing thrill, certain things not an hour past. But of course I wouldn't let her know that I had the least notion what she was driving at.

“Well, Aunt Nabby," I said, bustling round and putting the room to rights a little, for I had a fancy that Dick would be in by-andby, "what deadly sin do you imagine I'm going to commit now?"

""Taint sin, it's sorrow," she said. "It's September, aint it, Mary ?”

"Yes," said mother, hesitating a little. "And it was in September my Dan'l come home.

Stiff and stark the sea laid him in my arms that had waited empty and longing for him so long. What's a lover's sigh to a wife's weeping? I was young and pretty once you remember, Mary? but it all went, waitin' and watchin' for him. See here," she said threading her hair, which, though long, was gray as the gray moss, "black as yours, Clary, onee, but like this ever since

my Dan'l come back, and that's twenty years this September. See here," turning her dim blurred eyes on me, "good-by, bright eyes,' he said, when first he sailed away my husband, but they're as bright to-day as since twenty years ago this September. What's a lover's sigh to a wife's weeping, I say again?" she repeated, and then she huddled down with her hands spread over the blaze once more, and didn't speak for a long while.

I went to the window and looked out. The night was fairly down now. The sky was overcast and low, but wailing wind had sprung up and cried at the window. Of course the sea was moaning, too. It always does if a body's the least bit down-hearted when they listen, and mother's almost as bad as the sea about cheering anybody up, for just as sure as it's a little lonesome and gloomy, she'll begin to repeat "Gray's Elegy," or else hum over “China." So as I dropped the curtain, she had got as far as

"For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn."

"O mother," said I, "don't. Seems as if I should fly now, and I'd as lief be at a funeral any time, as to hear you say that over."

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Well," said mother, "seeing as you don't find my company agreeable, I guess I'll just run over to Mrs. Lowe's and see how she's getting along. You wont mind, I s'pose, Nabby, as you're going to stay over night?"

Aunt Nabby never answered, but sat crouched over the fire as still as if she hadn't been spoken to, and mother threw a shawl over her head and started. I'd have gone, too, only, as I said before, I half expected Dick; but I followed her to the door.

"Don't stay very long, mother," I said; "Aunt Nabby's enough to give anybody the horrors to-night. What makes her so much worse than common?”

"She's always dreadful low, poor thing, all through the month of September. I s'pose it makes her think more than ever of poor Dan'l. You know he was wrecked in the line ga'e right in sight of home. His dead body came ashore just below the Point, and she down on the beach at the very time. She'd always worried herself most to death about him ever since they were married, and when this came, it broke her all to pieces like. But it's no use minding her, Clary, since you can't do her any good."

Then mother went away, and this time I didn't stop outside to dally with my happy

thoughts, for somehow the night seemed full of death and dole, and I was afraid to look towards the Point, or the sea, even.

Aunt Nabby was sitting in her place, just the same as when I went out, and didn't speak, nor look up. I got my knitting-work and sat down, and began to ransack my brain for something to talk about, for it did seem as if I should rather mother would be there, repeating Gray's Elegy, even, than to sit there so silent, with that forlorn figure opposite. Of course, I couldn't think of a thing besides the weather, and I couldn't have hit upon anything worse as it turned out.

"I believe there's going to be a storm," I said, for the wind was rising fast.

"Storm! yes!" she said, "it was a dreadful awful storm; I thought every wave that broke shook the whole 'arth, and it seemed as if the wind would tear the very sky from over us." Then she fell to muttering something about "September" and "Dan'l's coinin' home."

Just then there came a knock at the door. I couldn't help a little low scream, I was so wrought up, and Aunt Nabby rose up suddenly.

"It's a warnin'," she said. "Yes, Dan'l, yes!"

I came to my senses again in a moment, and went to the door. Now I had been thinking that if Dick came I would be a little cool to him, just at first, to punish him for taking a kiss without so much as asking me, but I should have welcomed anybody just then, let them be who they might almost, and when I saw Dick standing on the step with his dark eyes shining, and his hair, that all the girls at the Point go crazy over, and that he will keep so provokingly short and not give half a chance to show itself, curled in a thousand little rings by the dampness, he did look so good to me I couldn't help showing that I was glad to see him, and if Aunt Nabby hadn't been there I don't think I should have been so very angry if he had kissed me again.

It's hard work being dismal long where Dick is, and long before mother came back I'd forgotten Aunt Nabby and "the horrors," and we couldn't hear the wind cry nor the sea moan for our laughing. Such foolishness! Dick wanting me to play "cat's cradle" with him, and when I wouldn't because I must knit, being taken wonderfully industrious all of a sudden, pulling my needles out, and me pulling his hair to pay for that! Moth