And Lasca! Lasca used to ride

On a mouse-gray mustang, close to my side,
With blue serape and bright-belled spur;
I laughed with joy as I looked at her!
Little knew she of books or creeds;
An Ave Maria sufficed her needs;
Little she cared, save to be by my side,
To ride with me, and ever to ride,
From San Saba's shore to Lavaca's tide.
She was as bold as the billows that beat,
She was as wild as the breezes that blow;
From her little head to her little feet

She was swayed, in her suppleness, to and fro
By each gust of passion; a sapling pine,
That grows on the edge of a Kansas bluff,

And wars with the wind when the weather is rough,
Is like this Lasca, this love of mine.

She would hunger that I might eat,

Would take the bitter and leave me the sweet;

But once, when I made her jealous for fun,

At something I'd whispered, or looked, or done,
One Sunday, in San Antonio,

To a glorious girl on the Alamo,

She drew from her garter a dear little dagger,
And--sting of a wasp!-it made me stagger!
An inch to the left or an inch to the right,
And I shouldn't be maundering here to-night;
But she sobbed, and, sobbing, so swiftly bound
Her torn reboso about the wound
That I quite forgave her. Scratches don't count
In Texas, down by the Rio Grande.

Her eye was brown,-a deep, deep brown;
Her hair was darker than her eye;

And something in her smile and frown,

Curled crimson lip, and instep high,

Showed that there ran in each blue vein,
Mixed with the milder Aztec strain,
The vigorous vintage of old Spain.

The air was heavy, the night was hot,

I sat by her side, and forgot--forgot;

Forgot the herd that were taking their rest;

Forgot that the air was close opprest,

That the Texas norther comes sudden and soon,

In the dead of night or the blaze of noon;

That once let the herd at its breath take fright,
That nothing on earth can stop the flight;
And woe to the rider, and woe to the steed,
Who falls in front of their mad stampede!
Was that thunder? No, by the Lord!
I spring to my saddle without a word.
One foot on mine, and she clung behind.
Away! on a hot chase down the wind!
But never was fox-hunt half so hard,
And never was steed so little spared.

For we rode for our lives. You shall hear how we fared
In Texas, down by the Rio Grande.

The mustang flew, and we urged him or ;

There was one chance left, and you have but one

Halt, jump to ground, and shoot your horse;
Crouch under his carcass, and take your chance;
And if the steers, in their frantic course,

Don't batter you both to pieces at once,
You may thank your star; if not, good-bye
To the quickening kiss and the long-drawn sigh,
And the open air and the open sky,

In Texas, down by the Rio Grande.

The cattle gained on us just as I felt
For my old six-shooter, behind in my belt,
Down came the mustang, and down came we,
Clinging together, and-what was the rest?
A body that spread itself on my breast,
Two arms that shielded my dizzy head,
Two lips that hard on my lips were pressed;
Then came thunder in my ears

As over us surged the sea of steers,
Blows that beat blood into my eyes,
And when I could rise

Lasca was dead!

I gouged out a grave a few feet deep,

And there in Earth's arms I laid her to sleep;
And there she is lying, and no one knows,
And the summer shines and the winter snows;
For many a day the flowers have spread
A pall of petals over her head;

And the little gray hawk hangs aloft in the air,
And the sly coyote trots here and there,

And the black snake glides, and glitters, and slides

Into the rift in a cotton-wood tree;

And the buzzard sails on,

And comes and is gone,

Stately and still like a ship at sea;

And I wonder why I do not care

For the things that are like the things that were.
Does half my heart lie buried there

In Texas, down by the Rio Grande?

JIM'S KIDS.

Jim was a fisherman; up on the hill,
Over the beach lived he an' his wife,
In a little house-you kin see it still-
An' their two fair boys; upon my life
You never seen two likelier kids,

In spite o' their antics an' tricks an' noise,
Than them two boys!

Jim would go out in his boat on the sea-
Just as the rest of us fishermen did-
And when he came back at night thar'd be
Up to his knees in surf each kid,

A beck'nin' and cheerin' to fisherman Jim;
He'd hear 'em, you bet, above the roar
Of the waves on the shore.

But one night Jim came a sailin' home

And the little kids weren't on the sands;

Jim kinder wondered they hadn't come,

And a tremble took hold o' his knees and hands, And he learnt the worst up on the hill

In the little house, and he bowed his head

"The fever," they said.

"Twas an awful time for fisherman Jim,

With them darlin's a dyin' afore his eyes;

They kep' a callin' and beck'nin' him,

For they kind o' wandered in mind, their cries

Were about the waves and fisherman Jim,
And the little boat a sailin' for shore-

Till they spoke no more.

Well, fisherman Jim lived on and on,

And his hair grew white and the wrinkles came

But he never smiled and his heart seemed gone,

And he never was heard to speak the name Of the little kids who were buried there

Up on the hill in sight o' the sea,

Under a willer tree.

One night they came and told me to haste
To the house on the hill, for Jim was sick,
And they said I hadn't no time to waste,
For his tide was ebbin' powerful quick,
An' he seemed to be wanderin' and crazy like,
An' a seein' sights he oughn't to see,
An' had called for me.

And fisherman Jim, sez he to me,

"It's my last, last cruise,-you understand,I'm sailin' a dark and dreadful sea,

But off on the further shore, on the sand,

Are the kids, who's a beck'nin' an' callin' my name,
Jes' as they did-ah, mate, you know--

In the long ago."

No sir! he wasn't afeard to die,

For all that night he seemed to see

His little boys of the years gone by,

And to hear sweet voices forgot to me;

An' just as the mornin' sun came up

"They're a holding me by the hands!" he cried-
And so he died.

OLD JACK IN THE WELL.

For twenty years old Jack Baldwin had cultivated the soil and drawn therefrom a support for himself and wife. Not long since Jack left his house in search of a missing cow. His route led him through an old wornout piece of clay land of about six acres in extent, in the centre of which was a well about thirty feet deep that at some time had probably furnished the inmates of a dilapidated house near by with water. In passing the spot an ill wind drifted Jack's hat from his head and maliciously wafted it to the edge of the well and it tumbled in. Now Jack had always practiced the virtue of economy, and

he immediately set about recovering his hat. He ran to the well, and finding it was dry at the bottom he unrolled the rope which he had brought for the purpose of capturing the cow, and after several attempts to catch the hat with a noose he concluded to save time by going down into the well himself. To accomplish this he made fast one end of the rope to a stump hard by, and was soon on his way down into the well.

It was a fact of which Jack was not aware, that a mischievous fellow, Neal Willis, was in the old building and saw Jack go down into the well, and it so happened that Jack's old blind horse was near by with a bell on his neck. Some wicked spirit put it into Neal's head to have a little fun; so he slipped up to the old horse, unbuckled the strap and approached the well with the bell in his hand,-ting-a-ling. Jack thought the old horse was coming, and said in an audible tone, "Hang the old blind horse; he's comin' this way, sure, and he ain't got no more sense than to fall in here on me-wo, Ball!" But the sound of the bell came closer, and Jack was resting at the bottom of the well. "Great Jerusalem!" said Jack; "the old blind fool will be right on top of me in a minit-wo, Ball,-wo, haw, Ball!" Just then Neal got close to the well and kicked a little dirt on Jack's head. Jack thought Ball was about to come, got close to the side of the well and began to pray: "O Lord, have mercy on-wo, Ball--a poor sinner. I'm gone now—wo, Ball-Our Father who art in-wo, Ball-heaven, hallowed be thy-jee! Ball, jee! what'll I do?—name. Now I lay me down to sl-jee, Ball, out of your livers! (Just then in fell more dirt.) Back, Ball; O Lord, if you ever intend to do anything for me--back, Ball, wo, ho,-Thy kingdom come-jee, Ball-O Lord, you know I was baptized in Smith's mill dam-wo, Ball, hol'up! murder! wo-farewell-"

Neal could hold in no longer and showed himself at the top of the well, with a big hoarse laugh which might