ing towns are no longer on the railroad schedule. Most of the remainder have dwindled into dreary, dingy villages, filled with forsaken, weather-blackened houses. Outside the towns the desolation of nature is equally disheartening. The mountain-slopes, once noble with their forests, have been left rough and shaggy, and densely crowded upon them are the deserted, black and ruined derricks, towering up like monuments in a cemetery of dead hopes. Nowhere can be found a more cheerless landscape than is to be seen through the windows on a ride upon such a 1ailroad as ours.

Old 99 makes her runs no more through this sad land. She has suffered that degradation to which all locomotives are subject. No longer deemed fit for regular service, she was assigned switch-duty at Eureka. Old Duncan Mackenzie accepted the inferior pay of switch-engineer and remained true to his locomotive; while Tom Benton, the fireman, gladly accepted, as engineer, the new locomotive and run that Mackenzie had declined. He has married pretty Daisy Custer and lives just outside Alamagoozalum City, now a peaceful country town. His home is by the railroad track. He has five children, and they all sit on the fence and wave their hands at him every day as his engine goes through.

Jim McClellan's story is that of many a trainman. He served faithfully as brakeman until his hands were so maimed he could serve no more. Then he was necessarily reduced to switchman. As switchman, he served with undiminished zeal. In heroically saving a passenger train from destruction, he was crippled in body and weakened in mind. Refusing the care provided for him, his pitiful plea was to be allowed still to serve his loved railroad, the road that had maimed and crippled him. There was difficulty in finding anything he could do; he was made to believe that the road needed his services on the old switch-engine at Eureka. A seat was provided for him and a few perfunctory duties assigned. Thus for many years he presided over old 99. But the time came when the crazy, old-fashioned engine was no longer regarded as safe, even for the humble service of switching.

One morning Tom Benton told his children that old 99 was to make her last run that day. She had been sold to the Iron Works at Petrolia City for junk. Mackenzie had asked, as a favor, that she be allowed to run herself down to Petrolia City instead of being towed, and his request was granted. The children were indignant at the treatment of 99, for to their minds she was the greatest engine on the road, after their father's, of course. Margaret, Tom's wife, was pleased, for she had always had a wholesome terror of the rickety old engine since the old days when Tom was its fireman. As Tom was leaving the house, however, she followed him to the gate and said:

"Tom, they won't put you on 99 today, will they?"

"Why should they?" asked Tom, somewhat surprised.

"I don't know, but promise you won't go."

"I'd have to, if I was ordered."

"Well, then, wire me if you are."

"All right," said Tom, good naturedly, and hurried to catch the up-freight.

At Eureka the whole railroad community was gathered at the station to see No. 99 off on her last run. The train dispatcher had come down to dispatch her in person. Every man assumed a gay and careless demeanor lest the others should suspect him of sentiment, and all were looking the other way, when old Mackenzie's eyes filled with tears, as he stroked the polished sides of 99 and said, "Well, old girl, we're going to make our last run today."

McClellan had been lifted into his throne and the engine was about to start, when an unexpected order came for six empty tank-cars at Petrolia City immediately. When the train dispatcher heard it he looked puzzled a moment; then, turning to Duncan, he said:

"Do you suppose 99 can carry six empties all right?"

"She certainly can, sir," responded the old engineer proudly. The train dispatcher determined to take all possible precautions, however. First he said: "Tom, you go as fireman, for he knew Benton's prudence and the value of his thorough knowledge of

the engine. Tom, remembering his promise, was not pleased, but he responded promptly, "All right." Stepping to the telegraph window, he picked up a blank and wrote a cheerful message: "Eureka Station, 9.37 A.M.

"Wave for me on the 99 at 11.45-Tom."

In a few moments the train dispatcher had made out a slower schedule for Mackenzie, and had wired reverse orders up and down the road. The empties from the siding had been coupled on, and all was ready.

The bell of 99 clanged out in its cracked voice, the whistle gave vent to a feeble squeak, and as the train started a shout arose, not so loud, but as hearty as on that day twenty years ago when 99 started on her first trip.

"Seems just like the old runs with only we three here," remarked Tom.

Jim sat on his throne, making feeble jests and the men laughing heartily at them.

No. 99 with her train of six oil-empties was passing a lonely valley station and toiling up a steep grade, only a few miles from Alamagoozalum City. The schedule was slow, but the train was behind time. Mackenzie looked again at his watch; Benton looked, too, and he knew that already Daisy and the children had been at the fence five minutes, waiting to wave at him.

"Heave on the coal, my lad," sang out Mackenzie; "old 99 won't give up on her last run. I tell ye she'll make it, or die a-trying."

Benton shoveled on the coal, and Duncan opened the throttle a little wider; 99's boiler creaked and groaned beneath the strain, but the engine darted ahead. Then came a crash that reverberated through the valley.

The six tank-cars stood alone-piled up on the track, while far around lay the scattered fragments of the engine.

Long after schedule time the Bentons waited at the fence for the train to come down, but the first train to pass them was the wrecker from Petrolia City, dashing up the track.

L. M. P., '03.

BY THE TAVERN FIRE.

"In the name of God, Amen. This 15th day of April in the year of the Lord 1775, I, Anthony Warren, being sick and weak of body, but of perfect mind and memory, praised be God therefore, do make this my last will and testament, commending my soul into the hands of a merciful God and my body to the dust from whence it was taken, and do here dispose of my worldly goods as followeth :-First, I give and bequeath unto Elizabeth, my wife, one-third of all my house, land and property; to my son, Ambrose, and to his children after him, the residue of my property.

And hereupon Anthony Warren dictating from a heap of pillows in the great four-posted bedstead, fell to laughing,

"A pretty time they'll have, my son and Elizabeth, my wife. A pretty time! I never could manage her and I'd like to see the man that can." And he fell into such a fit of chuckling and coughing that the notary, a timid little man, fled downstairs for aid and Anthony himself recovered but long enough to see his will attested.

A bare three weeks had elapsed when the notary came trudging to the house again. "Tis an ill wind blows no man good," he said beneath his breath, "and quarrels make me a long purse." He came to draw up a precise division of thirds, by which Elizabeth had her share in barn and land, in the attic and cellar of the house, two bed-rooms and the chimney-corner by the great old fireplace. Neither mother nor son was to trespass on the other's share, and Elizabeth Warren set her firm old jaw as she signed her name below her son's.

There was peace in the house after this. Ambrose was peaceable enough in small matters, though there was determination and fire behind the deep-set eyes. The villagers who dropped in at the bar, in the little room behind the big kitchen, winked to each

other as they saw the old woman sitting passively in her chimneycorner, nodding and mumbling to herself.

"Anthony's death upset her," they whispered; "she'll follow him soon." Elizabeth Warren nodded on and answered not a word.

The men caine often to the tavern. Those were thrilling times and Lexington and Bunker Hill had flown on wings across the country. The tavern was the rendezvous, and night after night, all the country side dropped gradually in to talk about the war till the little bar-room was filled and the men crowded into the kitchen. Night after night they talked while the patriot innkeeper inspired them all with his own enthusiasm and the woman mumbled on unheard in her chimney-corner.

There was one night when they began to talk about an attack on Fort Grenville some forty miles distant, that many of the men glanced suspiciously at the white-haired woman in the corner. Her husband had served his king in the French and Indian war, and his worn red jacket lay upstairs in the great oak chest. In their loyalty to King George, husband and wife had been united against the rebellious spirit of the son, and old Dame Warren did not easily change her mind. It was her son Ambrose himself who reassured them, saying that since his father's death her memory had failed completely and she was as harmless as the lantern that swung outside the door. It was late when the men parted and went forth into the night. Ambrose watched them go, standing at the open door and looking at the boughs of the great elm-tree swinging gray in the light of the lantern against the starry skies.

"One more night with the men, with the maps and the papers, and after that, Hurrah for Grenville! So late up, mother? To bed. The fire is near burned out."

She took a tallow candle, lighted it at the embers and tottered frailly up the stairs, and Ambrose, a loyal but a temperate man, banked the fire and his enthusiasm to keep over to the morrow, and placidly went to bed.

The men moulded pewter plates into bullets next day down at