class="caption">INDEPENDENT AS A KING.

"Do you moind, Tim," she said, "when Keely O'Burke trated his new wife to a ride on a hand-car? Soon as your eyes lighted on him you shouted like a house-a-fire, 'Number Five will be down in three

minutes!' Didn't Keely clane lose his head? But between you, you pushed the car off the track in a jiffy. And Mrs. O'Burke's new bonnet was all smashed in the ditch, an' the bloody snort of Number Five knocked you senseless. Who would have thought that boost of the cow-catcher was jist clear good luck? And you moped about with a short draw in your chist, and seemed bound to be a grouty

old man in the chimney corner that could niver lift a stroke for your childer, ah' you didn't see the good luck, you know, Tim—but when the prisident sent the bran new cow with a card tied to one horn, an' Connor read it when he came home from school: 'For Tim Magan, who saved the train. Good luck to him!'—wasn't it all right then? Now you are as good as new, and our mocley is quiet as a lamb, and if I was Queen Victoria hersel, she couldn't give any sweeter milk for me. She's the born beauty."

Well, Connor was his mother's own boy for making the most and the best of everything, and he saw several items of good luck this day.

First: The river had risen so near the school-house that the desks and benches were moved up between the tracks and the school dismissed; therefore there was perfect freedom to enjoy the excitement of the occasion. It was as good as a move or a fire.

Second: There was so much danger that the track might be undermined that all trains were stopped by order of the Railroad Company; therefore his father was at liberty.

Third, and best of all: Larry O'Flaherty, who lived up Bald Face Creek, had lent him his skiff for the day. The boys had had an extatic time the evening

before, hauling in drift-wood. Though the coal-barges had bright red lights at their bows, and the steamboats were ablaze with green and red signals, and blew their gruff whistles continually, yet it was hardly safe to go far from the shore at night because the Ripple was so near. When the river was rising the drift was driven close to land, while falling it floated near the middle of the river. Connor could see the flood was still rising, and there were possibilities of a splendid catch, for it was daylight, and they could go where they pleased with Larry's boat.

Father and son pushed out into the river. Connor felt as if he owned the world. Short sticks and staves were put in the bottom of the boat. Both fishermen had a long pole with a sharp iron hook at the end with which, when they came close to a log, they harpooned it. Bringing it near, they drove a nail into one end, and tying a rope round the nail, they fastened their prize to the stern of the boat. They took turns rowing and spearing drift-wood; and when the log-fleet swimming after them became large, they went to shore and secured it.

When the dripping logs were long and heavy, it was the custom to fasten them with the rope close to a stake in the bank, and leave them floating. At

low water they were left high and dry on the sand.

No other drift-wood gatherers meddled with such logs. They were considered as much private property as if already burning on the hearth.

"I'm going up the hill to feed the cow, Connor," said his father, after a great deal of wood of every size and shape had been landed. "Mind what you are about, and take care of Larry's gim of a boat. It was mighty neighborly to lind it for the whole day. See now, how much drift you can pick up by yourself."

Connor felt the responsibility, and worked diligently. He had twice taken a load to shore, and was quite far again in the stream, when he saw a strange sight. It was not Moses in the bulrushes, to be sure—but a child in a wicker wagon, floating down the current amid a lot of sticks and branches. The hoarse whistle of a steamboat near meant danger; and to the eye of Connor the baby-craft seemed but a little above the water, and to be slowly sinking.

Connor's shout rang back from the Kentucky hills as if it came from the throat of an engine.

No one answered.

There were great logs between his skiff and the

child—logs and child were all moving together. Should he abandon Larry's precious boat?

Connor could not consider this. He plunged into the water and swam round the logs. He never knew how he did it—he never knew how he cut his hand—he never felt the pounding of the logs—he only knew that he caught the wagon, kept those black eyes above the water, and pulled the precious freight to shore. Then, while the water was streaming from him in every direction, he sprang up the few steps to his mother's cabin, and without a word placed the child, still in the wagon, inside the door!

Running back as swiftly as his feet would carry him, Connor had the good luck to find the deserted boat close to shore, jammed in a mass of drift-wood, just in the turn of the Riffle.

Dragging it up and along the shore, he fastened it to a fisherman's stake just by Twinrip. Then Connor felt he had discharged his duty—Larry O'Flaherty's boat was safe—high and dry out of reach of eddying logs.

Now, eager, dripping, and breathless—with eyes like stars, he flew home again.

"Oh, mother," he said, "she's fast to the post and not a hole knocked into her, and ain't her eyes black

and soft as our mooley cow's and I found her before the General Little ran her down—and I'm going to keep her always—I found her—isn't it lucky we have a cow?"

What the boy said was rather mixed—you could not parse it, but you could understand it.

The baby's big black eyes looked around, and she acknowledged a cup of milk and her deliverer by a smile. It was a strange group. In the midst of a puddle of water Mother Maggie was leaning over the new comer and trying to untie the numerous knots in a shawl which had kept the child in her wicker nest. Little Mike was staring open-eyed at the beads round baby's neck, and at the coral horseshoe which hung from them. The pretty little girl seemed quite contented, and with the happy unconsciousness of infancy was evidently quite at home.

"Poor baby, where did she come from?" said Mother Maggie. "Won't her mother cry her eyes out when she can't see her? We must advertise her in one of those big city papers."

"I found her," said Connor, "she's mine."

"Why, my boy," said his mother, "she's not a squirrel—you can't keep her as you did the bunny you found in the hickory tree, and not ask any questions!"

"I wish there were no newspapers, and that people couldn't read besides," wrathfully exclaimed Connor.

"Maybe," he added, with hopeful cheerfulness, "both her father and mother are drowned. May I keep her then? She may have half of my bread and milk."

Babies were no great rarity in Twinrip, but never was there such a happy, bright-eyed little maiden as this waif proved to be. Among the children she glowed like a dandelion in the grass, and reigned like a queen among her subjects.

Connor was the scholar of the family, and at length his conscience was sufficiently roused to make him indite an advertisement which did him much credit. He hoped it might be placed in some obscure corner of the paper where it would be overlooked.

But next day, in a conspicuous part of the Cincinnati Commercial, with four little hands pointing to it, appeared this rather unusual notice: