The river, the mountain, the quickening east swam before his eyes. He shut them to recover his self-control. In that brief interval, by some fantastic mental process, the little room at Simpson’s Bar, and the figures of the sleeping father and son, rose upon him. He opened his eyes widely, cast off his coat, pistol, boots, and saddle, bound his precious pack tightly to his shoulders, grasped the bare flanks of Jovita with his bared knees, and, with a shout, dashed into the yellow water. A cry rose from the opposite bank as the head of a man and horse struggled for a few moments against the battling current, and then were swept away, amid uprooted trees and whirling driftwood. * * * * * The Old Man started and awoke. The fire on the hearth was dead, the candle in the outer room flickering in its socket, and somebody was rapping at the door. He opened it, but fell back with a cry before the dripping half-naked figure that reeled against the door-post. “Dick?” “Hush! Is he awake yet?” “No,—but Dick——?” “Dry up, you old fool! Get me some whisky _quick_!” The Old Man flew and returned with—an empty bottle! Dick would have sworn, but his strength was not equal to the occasion. He staggered, caught at the handle of the door, and motioned to the Old Man. “Thar’s suthin’ in my pack yer for Johnny. Take it off. I can’t.” The Old Man unstrapped the pack and laid it before the exhausted man. “Open it, quick!” He did so with trembling fingers. It contained only a few poor toys—cheap and barbaric enough, goodness knows, but bright with paint and tinsel. One of them was broken; another, I fear, was irretrievably ruined by water; and on the other, ah me! there was a cruel spot. “It don’t look like much, that’s a fact,” said Dick ruefully.... “But it’s the best we could do.... Take ’em, Old Man, and put ’em in his stocking, and tell him—tell him, you know—hold me, Old Man.” The Old Man caught at his sinking figure. “Tell him,” said Dick, with a weak little laugh—“tell him Sandy Claus has come.” And even so, bedraggled, ragged, unshaven and unshorn, with one arm hanging helplessly at his side, Santa Claus came to Simpson’s Bar and fell fainting on the first threshold. The Christmas dawn came slowly after, touching the remoter peaks with the rosy warmth of ineffable love. And it looked so tenderly on Simpson’s Bar that the whole mountain, as it caught in a generous action, blushed to the skies. _Bret Harte._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _THE BREACH OF PROMISE CASE._ AMOS DIXON had not been long gone from the elegant house when Miss Sophia Garr, caparisoned in a jaunty hat and a ready-made cloak, sallied forth on a little business of her own.