In the main apartment of the Magnolia saloon, -a party of boys were sitting round a table, upon which steamed a large bowl, emitting a fragrant and aromatic odour. “ Whoever she mought be,” observed a tall and rather angular personage known to his companions as JLong Tom Rollins— “ Whoever she mought be, she’s alone, barring thet kid, and unpertected besides. She’s sickly, too, and orter hev a doctor. This ain’t no sort of a place for a.—a—in- Verlid,” he concluded, hesitatingly, re moving his heavy boot from the table, and helping himself to a liberal allowance of •the punch. Then, after a pause, he con

tinued, “ I wonder what ails the critter, anyhow ? ” » ££ A man’s at the bottom of it, gentle men, you hear me,” observed Judge Gash wilder from the other side of the table, nodding conviction at each of his hearers in turn. “ Take my word for it, ther’s a man in it, as ther alters is in any deviltry that robs a poor woman’s cheek of its bloom, and her eye of its light. ” The Judge was eloquent at all times. But when his round pate glistened from the effects of good punch, and his theme was woman, he was thought by the men of Mud Elat to have but few’ equals. Therefore the little party seated around the table were considerably startled when, just as their favorite orator had thrust his right hand into his breast as a preparatory gesture leading to a more extended tribute to the sex, Long Tom Rollins leaned for ward and exclaimed :

“ Sqe here, old man. How do you know all this ? ”

For a moment everybody was aghast. Whether they were astonished at the sud denness of the interuption. or at the half savage tone of the speaker, or whether it occurred to them that the Judge might possibly have so far over-stepped the bounds of prudence as to have attempted “ pumping ” the interesting stranger may never be known. For an instant his naturally serene countenance wore an ex pression which in another would have been mistaken, for guilt. If the confi dence which the others had always placed in him was a trifle shaken at that instant, it was quickly restored when, after a moment’s hesitation the old gentleman explained his peculiar position. 