A Deferred Affair.

Jxtan Stanhope, Tánger, on his shaggy 'roncho, cantered lazily down the dust cjarpeted trail with drooped head and thonghtful brow. His short carbine seasawed across his left leg, which hung fllonchily over the hom of his big Mexican saddle. His whole attitude was ons of relaxation. His eyes were half closed and hia thonghts were wandering dreamily baok to the days before a spirit f deviltry had induced him to leave {bis old home in the bine grass región of Tennessee to seek excitement and adventure on the Texas prairies. The aun tilazed down in vertical rays and tremulous heat waves rose from the bowlders cattered here and there. Snddenly Stanhope carne to his senses nd jerked at his bridle so violently that his horse reared on his hind legs nd snorted. Stanhope didn't know what caused him to stop. He feit vagueiy that something was wrong, bnt he had no idea what. He looked about. " Wonder where them fellows are?" 'he muttered. "Eeckon they stopped baok up the trail a bit." Stanhope turued his broncho's head and rode back io where a olump of sorub oak and -chaparral hid the winding trail from -view. Bising in his stirrups, he looked bout. There was not a living thing in pight. The nndulating prairie, brown and hot, dotted with an ocoasional bit of timber, stretched away in every direction. "Well, Til be d d," exclaimed Stanhope half aloud, "ef thisdon't beat me. Where kin thein fellers be?" He rode to the top of the highest noli in the vioiuity and, shading his yes with bis bands, again looked carefully about. He bad taken uunecessary .trouble. No one was in sigbt. "You'd 'a' thought Bill Childress would 'a' had more sense!" Stanhope said, addressing his pony. The pony was accustomed to being talked to by Stanhope when they were alone togethr. He may not have understood what his uiaster said, but he knew tbat he was being talked to, and he worked his intelligent ears energetically by way of jreply. "As for that young cub that come down from San Au tune, " Stanhope went on, "I never did think he was top heavy with sense. Maybe they stopped at that 'royo we orossed two mile back to look for som e water." The broncho's ears worked again, so .Stanhope rode back down to the trail, 'unsaddled and tetbered his horse and lay down under the shade of a scrub oak with a saddle for a pillow to wait for his oompanions to catcb np. It did not occur to him that anything tnight have happen ed to Childress and the oub, who was a young man recently oorne from the States impelled by the ame thirst for adventure that had brought Stanhope to Texas. There were oo Mexican cattle lifter that he knew of in 100 miles, and Oolonel Tipton's road agents had, he thought, been -wiped out by some of Captain Hays' xangers a fortnight before. At least a report to that effect had Teaohed San Antonio a few days before. The Matamoras stage driver told him about it that morniug when the stage passed him and his two oompanions, 30 miles or more back up the trail. He ,and Childress and the tenderfoot - Wallace was the tenderfoot's name - were on their way to join Hays' camp at the Bedbiiuk ranch. Stanhope, as he lay under the oak, watohed his pony nosing about for a .green tuft of grass until his eyelids gradually drooped, and he sank into a pleasant sleep. He had scarcely closed his eyes, he thought, when he suddenly at up. The suu was sinking red behind feathery, crimson olouds over the western hills, and the purple tinge of evening was gradually creeping aoross the eky. A eool wind swept up from the gulf, 200 Miles away. Opposite Stanhope sat a swarthy, muscular man, with shaggy hair and a shaggier beard, looking quizzically at him. A rifle rested aoross his knees. A blood stained piece of oloth was bound tightly about his left hand. "Tipton, by the Lord!" yelled Stanhope, instinctively reaching for his rifle. The sbaggy man grinned. "Needn't trouble to look f er your gun," he drawled. "I've moved it." Stanhope boiled with rage and oha■giia. He tried to say somethiug, but his tongue refused to perform its f unotions. Tipton saw the eft'ort and smiled again. "You're a fooi, Stanhope," he observed briefly. "You're right there," snapped the other. "I'mthe biggestfool out of heil, orthe bnzaards wonld 'a' hadyourman,gy oarcass picked clean before this. ' ' "Yaas, I know, " replied the shaggy man, with exasperating deliberation. "You did overlook a bit when you forgot to scrag me that night on the Nueces. You know I'm a purty slippery cuss. Better be prompt the next time - that is, if there's goin to be any inext time." Stanhope had oooled down consideratoly. He looked steadily at the shaggy man and tben grinned. There was something iufectious in Tipton's good nature. "Well. yon've got me, haven't you?" he said. "Yon allers was a young man of powerful diecarnment," replied Tipton, "but this time it ain't a question of what I'm goin to do to you. I'm not the doer in this here game. There'sothers that bolds better oards nor men or yon in it." "What d'you mean?" "Oh, nothin, only that greaser ouss, Gonzales, he's got 'crost the Grande -and is raisin heil all through these parts. He surprised Hays at the Bedbank ranoh and come pretty nigh killiu off all his men." Stanhope rubbed his eyes in amazment. The shaggy man went on: "He run 'crost what Captain Hays io his wisdom and generosity left i my oommaod last night, and J'm tb lïeinlt. "See thia, " and Tiptón held np hls banúagyi hand. "There'aa slug o' lead ■s big a the end of your thumb went through it." The sun had disappeared behind the hills, and in the dim twilight Tipton's shaggy ontline lookfi shadowy and indistinct to Stanhope, so astonished was he. He whistled softly, and the pony pricked np bis ears. "I b'lieve you are as close to the truth as yon ever get, " he said to Tiptoa. The ahaggy man flared up, and Stanhope oonld see a dangerons glitter in his gray eyes. "Kone of that," he growled. "This is a matter 'tween Greaser and white Ban. I'm with the white man. Savvy? After it's over you and me'll have it out. "In any way you like," said Stanhope stiffly. "You know me, Tipton." And he retnrned the shaggy man'sglare through the gloom. "1 s'pose them two fellers I rnn acrost with their throats cut back np the trail was your friends?" Tipton described the men. "Yes." "Well, then, the Greasers ia only waitin fer night to rub us out." "I snpposu so. " "Well, theu, we'll fooi 'em," and to Sfcanhope's astonishmeut the shaggy man collected a lot of mosquito roots and lighted a fire. "What the devil are you up to, man?" he demanded rougbly. "D'you want to fis 'em a lifjht to kill us by?" "My son, I've been at thia game onger'n you have," replied Tipton. ítanhope úeld bis peace. After Tipton ot the fire started he made two piles, one on each sitie of the fire, out of Stanhope's saddle and what was left of ihe uiesquite roots be had collected. Se covered one with Stanhope's blanket and threw his own buckskin jacket over ;he other. Whea he finished, he looked up. "Now, Stanhope, we'll hide in that patch o' chaparral yonder and wait till ;hey turns up. " "Why not clear out of this altogether?" asked Stanhope. "Ain't one chance in 1,000,000 that we could get away," said Tipton, "and we can entertain 'em better here. " Stanhope saw the wisdom of Tipton'a sóbeme, and, picking np his rifle, fol:owed him to the chaparral thioket. The grass was heavy with dew, and ;hey were toon wet to the skin. The oool, steady breeze did not tend to make ;hem more oomfortable. They lay shivering in the chaparral until Tipton's ire was nothing but a pile of red emaers. The moon pushed its silver rim over the eastern hills and shed a ghaatly light over the prairie, metamorphosing the chumps of chaparral and isolated sorub oaks into fantastio shapes. Kot a sound disturbed the stillness exoept the chirp of insects, the wail of ;he coyotes and the occasional rustling of the chaparral as a breath of wind stirred it. Stanhope was just dozing off when he feit Tipton's toe soraping against his shin. He was wide awake in an instant. "Look," said Tipton. "I thought there waa too d d many insects 'bout." Stanhope looked toward the fire, which consisted now of one or two dim reü coals. A dark form was stealthily worming its way toward the pile of mesquite roots that his blanket covered. "Good job yon ain't under that blanket," whispered Tipton. Stanhope thonght it was. The wriggling figure approached nearer and nearer to the pile. Suddenly a hand was raised and a gleaming knife sank into the blanket. At the same instant Tipton's rifle went off. The dark form rose, gave a piercing yell and feil ■with outstretched arms. Four other figures rose from the prairie, and Stanhope's rifle exploded. There was another yell - another dark form dropped. Three figures dodging buckward and forward, vanished in the unoertain moonlight. Tipton laughed - a wild, terrible laugh, that sounded like the howl of a whole paok of coyotes. Answering yells oame from every live oak about them. "Them's Kiowas, " said Tipton, ramm ing a oharge home. "Guess old Gonzales 'lowed he'd lift all the cattle in this part of Texas." Stanhope didn't have time to say he thought so too. Fif ty rifles flashed about them and as mauy bullets tore through the chaparral overhead. Two rifles spit baok their streaks of fire f rom the thicket, and two robust voices yelled out their defiance. The ciaoks of the rifles continued for two hours, tbe oircles of flashes without the chaparral drawing closer and oloser and the yells of defiance within it beooming feebier and feebier. By and by the fire from the ohaparral stopped and the fire from without it slackened. Then all was Btill. Half a dozen of Hays' rangers galloping toward San Antonio at daybreak the nest morning disturbed a paok of Buarliug coyotes reuding the flesh of a dead bronoho, three Kiowas and two Mexicana near the ashes of a campflre. Another pack was circling warily about a olnmp of chaparral 100 yards away. Breaking into the thicket, the rangers found two bodies full of bullot holes. "That's Tipton," said one ranger, looking down into the face of one. "Yes, and here's Stanhope," said another. "Well, tbis beata me," they all said together. They scooped a deep hole in the chaparral with their bowie knives, laid the two bodies in it, filled the hole up with bowlders and dirt to keep the jackals out, fired a salute, mounted their horses and galloped up the trail. As the beat of their horses' hoofs died away in the distanoe the coyotea slunk back to the bronoho, the three Kiowaa and the two Mexicana. The affair of honor between John Stanhope, ranger, and Oolonel Edward Tiutou, road agent, was not settled on