circles were of vital interest to him. He would sit at the door of the cabin and look from Raven Hill to the stern old peak and wonder as to the time of the coming. Mighty visions came to him of the King of Glory rising above the mountain in a cloud of dazzling light. As little as the boys in the cabin thought of it this deception cost poor Rod much anxiety. He meditated every day on his unregeneracy. The West had proven a very bad venture for his morals. His stock of "cuss" words on the farm had been limited to "dog gone it" and "blame it," and "you old fool” (usually applied to the mules), but since coming West he had become a regular ranter. And Sunday, the day he was wont to put on his best clothes and sit in the meeting house, casting sheep's eyes at Minty McIntyre in her corner, often passed now without his knowing it. Through West's influence they had taken him' as nipper at the Great Eagle mine and they didn't allow God had a day up there. So Rod toted steel as usual. Then the dancing he had taken up here-what would his mother and Minty say if they knew? These reflections punished him cruelly, and the water would stream from his drawn eye as he thought of the second coming and his unreadi

ness.

It was the next day after Rod's talk with Gaffney on the ore dump that the plan was made. The boys in the cabin determined to cure him of his kiddishness. The joke was to be saved for Christmas to add to the jollity of that season. Just at that time Rod would be coming off the night shift at two o'clock. Their scheme was to have a bright light appear on the peak, and on an adjoining hill a trumpet should toot long and mournfully the tragic tidings that the King of Kings was at hand.

The winter fell early. By the middle of October the storm clouds were gathering on Ryolite Hill-gray, tumbling vapors that foretold much snow. One day it came-a wild tangle, shooting lightly at first a lace vail across the dun hills, then fiercely blurring and blotting out their huge shoulders and airy turrets. After that a white world-white to remain until June's assuaging sun should beam again.

The eve of Christmas drew in with a swift, cold dusk. The stars came out a mighty hostit was their time to sing. The outlying ranges were densely black against the horizon, cutting their sombre shapes on the jeweled spaces of the sky. The Lucky Cuss partners were chuckling already over the night's fun.

Down in the Great Eagle mine, Rod going from stope to stope, and level to level, gathering

and giving out steel, whistled "Roll, Jordan, Roll." When he had placed the drills in the skip and given the bell for it to be hoisted, he nimbly climbed up on a stull, and proceeded to play a mouth organ. When the whistle blew at the close of the shift Rod was the first to mount. He had Christmas in his bones, and started down the trail unconscious that crouched in every shadow was a man waiting to see him run. Suddenly a voice roared:

"My God! See the light on the Peak !''

The boy halted and threw up his head like a frightened beast. With one glance he took in the flame-lit heavens, and in the moment came a long, blood-curdling horn wail, and he started. He forsook the trail and split through the deep snow of the timber, fighting and breaking his way.

"Lightning of Zeus, see him run !"

"He's got speed, if he does lack pedigree."
"Go it, colt of the Tennessee hills !''
"He's shod with electricity.'

These remarks came forth with the dark forms that emerged from the brush, as Rod's flying figure disappeared.

His partners went after him, barely keeping in sight. At Spinney's mill they sat down breathless and saw Rod go over the hill bareheaded, arms wildly extended and his jumper trimming the wind with the force of transit.

A week later the Kansas papers reported the advent of a new prophet. He had not come exactly as John the Baptist, but he was tramping through the State dressed in miner's clothes, preaching wildly as he went. He told his astonished listeners that Christ had come to Colorado He was just from there, and had seen Him. He saw Him come over Pike's Peak, followed by a host of shining angels, and the sound of Gabriel's trumpet rent the air for miles. He told them he had fled because of his wickedness. That away down the cañon road he had fallen on his knees and made his peace with God. besought his hearers to do the same, for he

He

fleas, not guests. It was also full of flies. When we sat down to breakfast or dinner without a little girl to wave a cloth over our heads and the eatables, we had to fight with the flies for our share of what was going. I don't know when I was more uncomfortable than here in Carloforte, what with the fleas and the flies. The nights too were so hot that it was difficult to sleep, quite apart from the above enemies to orthodox repose. On the evening of our arrival the young woman who waited on us brought us a steak of tunny as a course at dinner. The English Vice-Consul happened to be with us at the time.

"By the way," said he, "have you gentlemans (he was a native and not very good at English) ever seen a 'matanza '?"

"Matanza" is Spanish for "slaughter." It is particularly applied to the killing of a herd of tunny.

No, we had not seen a "matanza," except of bulls and horses (especially horses) in Spainas disagreeable a sight as can be conceived-and we said so.

"Oh, then you have good luck," he replied. "I shall give you a letter to Don, who is the manager of the 'tonnara' (the village of tunny slaughterers), and you shall see one. It is arranged for to-morrow. There was one matanza two days ago, and we hear to-day that the net is again prepared. You shall not miss the sight; it is beautiful."

My friend and I were both exceedingly glad to hear this. We had hoped we might see a tunny killing in the north of the island, but this bird in the hand seemed the very one for us to seize, and so we accepted the Vice-Consul's offer without hesitation.

The fresh tunny steak was most palatable. "Yes," said the Vice-Consul, trying a morsel on the end of a fork, "it is new killed, but not quite new. You shall like better the piece you eat to-morrow evening, if you have the stomach

for it."

"Oh, you shall see, you shall see!" was his laughing reply.

After dinner we all strolled down to the beach with our cigars to breathe some cool air if we could find it. On our way we passed a butcher's shop. A very fat priest was smelling a piece of red meat that looked much like horseflesh. "Behold!" said the Vice-Consul, "that is funny. A fine fish, Don Ramon" (to the priest). But the priest merely raised his bushy eyebrows as he flipped his fingers and turned away

from the butcher, who was regarding him with avidity.

"What shall I cut for you, most reverend ?" asked the butcher.

"Nothing, my friend; nothing to-day. The weather is hot; indeed, the weather is very hot,” said his reverence, with what looked like a wink. "I do not eat tunny when it is so hot, unless— you understand."

The Vice-Consul laughed; and we also laughed. It was impossible not to laugh at this heartyfaced pastor, whose broad cheeks and hanging chin seemed made up of smiles and contentment.

We looked up and down the strait which here separates St. Peter's Isle from the mainland of Sardinia. Across the water way the mountains were already purpling. Some islanders with their sweethearts (the girls wearing silk handkerchiefs of various colors round their shapely heads) were out on the sea, singing as they dallied with their oars. The Mayor of Carloforte was taking the air on the little pier, turning in his promenade whenever he touched the conspicuous statue commemorating the rescue a hundred years ago of a number of the islanders from slavery in Tunis. Some one strummed at a mandolin. The boys and men bathed, splashing to and fro among the boats, which, on their part, just lurched this way and that with the surge of the sea.

It was a very pretty scene, and we did not say "Good night" to it until the crimson sunset hues had quite gone from the mainland mountains and the stars and moon had begun to illumine the channel.

The next morning we were called early as usual. Down south one gets up at five or so in self-protection. After seven the heat begins to be annoying. From six to seven, however, the air is delicious.

We ate our breakfast of rolls and honey-butter in the south is a suspicious article; it is either made in Denmark or from sheep's milkand immediately afterward we took to the beach, where much excitement was already apparent. In fact, the "slaughterers were massing to row out to the "madraga,' or trap set in the sea, which held a few hundred tunny ready for their doom.

They were fine fellows, these slaughterers, in their white woolen jerseys and with faces mahogany brown. Many of them were from Genoa, here just for the tunny season, which lasts only from mid-April to the end of June. But the native dialect of the Sardes also made itself heard.

With the men were a number of young women,

likewise interested in the tunny. The Sardes think nothing so attractive as a matanza. The girls were chattering and flashing their white teeth as if they meant to have a thoroughly good time on this hot June day.

There were about a hundred men present, including a dozen or so individuals of the tramp species-gentlemen in very airy rags and looking as if they had not eaten a hearty meal for a long time. The latter were to help to drag in the net, which might have a thousand fish in it, averaging two or three hundredweight apiece.

One man among the others was very conspicuous. He was a tall, lean fellow, who gave his orders to the men to get into the boats, and who all through the day was distinctly the controlling spirit.

Him they call in Sardinia the "rais," from the Arabic " ras," the head. A thousand years ago the Moors and others were always making forays into Sardinia. Some settled there and left a stock of Moorish children behind them. There is much Arabic in the various Sarde dialects, and the name of a rais" at a "matanza" bears witness to the island's bad quarters of an hour in the old times.

At the bidding of the rais, then, when a gun was fired from a little islet between the mainland and St. Peter's-an islet with a long chimney to it, which was smoking furiously the boats all got into procession, and, being attached to each other, a steam tug transported us all to the scene of the day.

Our lady friends sang as we moved. They have not much idea of melody, nevertheless there was something quite pleasing about their voices on this placid summer morning. As for the men, like men elsewhere, they paid due homage to tobacco. They would have enough work by and by.

The smoking chimney just mentioned was part of the tunny factory. The fish of the last catch were being cooked in the tins to which they had been consigned piecemeal. As we As we neared the islet a whiff of fish came off from it toward us. It was far from agreeable.

One of the fishermen noticed my movement of disgust.

"Oh, that!" he exclaimed in Italian, with a laugh. "It is nothing. You shall smell something worse than that. Is it your first slaughter ?"

"The first," I replied. "Good; then the gentleman cannot tell. God gives men stomachs of different strengths."

This jest went round the boat. We did not

quite understand to what test of so grave a kind our stomachs were to be subjected. The sea was quiet enough, and we had confidence in being able to stand a bit of tossing, even if it roughened. But we know now.

We did not land on the islet. The steam tug darted off with the boat holding the rais. It left him over the madraga, or snare. He was scrutinizing his victims to make sure they had not broken loose. When he was satisfied, the tug brought us also toward the madraga.

Something must be said about these tunny nets before describing the slaughter. They are about the most extensive sea traps used anywhere in the world; and, seeing that a full equipment of one costs ten thousand dollars, the most costly also. They consist of two parts, an outer arrangement of esparto grass, and an inner removable drag net of the strongest hemp. Every year the outer framework is fashioned afresh for the tunny season. This also is under the supervision of the rais, who is nothing if not an experienced fisherman himself. The skeleton of esparto grass extends often more than two miles in three directions. It is made up in its centre of a series of huge chambers into which the tunny are lured by the presence of certain of their brethren who are already in, but cannot get out of the trap. The size of the concern may be imagined when I add that its walls are about fifty feet in height and breadth. Twice as many feet of water's depth are reckoned necessary for the fixing of a madraga, which in its skeleton is fastened down with huge stones and iron anchors, the outline showing on the surface by sketch lines of corks, which hold it in position.

Within the outer lure the net itself is fixed. It goes to the final chamber of the madraga, into which the tunny are duly frightened by the rais with a dummy of stone wrapped in sheepskin which he lets down into their midst. When the fish are in this death chamber, as it is called, all the other chambers are closed fast, and it only remains for the huge barges which are to hold the dead fish to arrange themselves in a square over the death chamber, the net from which, with its terrific burden of struggling and frightened tunny, has gradually to be raised to the surface within the barrier of boats and barges.

This description will explain why we were kept rocking off Isola Piana for a while. The rais had some trouble to coax his victims into the death chamber. They behaved as if they knew what was in store for them, once fast trapped. Certain of them, he told us afterward,