tient, and Tsar could therefore walk out and look up and down the shady road for an explanation of his own case. He could not see any, at first, for there was nothing to be learned from a flock of geese, three hens, and one stray calf. The very pig that was rooting under the walnut-tree paid him no manner of attention.

Tsar shrugged his broad shoulders to make sure about the collar, pawed his nose for a moment in memory of his muzzle, and turned for a look at the gate. There it was, with a very dingy old tin sign on one post, whose faded letters read "Dr. Heber Gorham," and with a very new tin sign on the other post, whose bright, fresh gilding announced "Dr. Heber Gorham, Jr.," as also ready for patients.

That was all right, and it occurred to Tsar that a walk would be good for his health. He acted on the suggestion promptly enough, but with dignity, as became a dog of his size; and no voice from the house recalled him, as he marched away down the road towards the sea. A sniff of salt air would be just the thing for his digestion, after the hearty dinner he had eaten at the kennel.

The sun was getting very low towards the horizon, and yet, away down there on the rock at the head of the cove a curly-headed young lady of nineteen, or thereabouts, was still seated, bending over a portfolio spread across

her lap. From time to time she cast anxious glances from the lines she traced upon the sheet of Bristol board under her hand to the more and more shadowy island, out there in the mouth of the cove.

"That will do," she said. "It looks bigger than the boat, now, but it is n't big enough for the tree. I must make the tree smaller; the cow's back, too, -it's half as long as the island. There is always something dreadful the matter with my waves." She worked at the

waves for a few minutes. "If I had time, I'd try to put in the sunset. Dear me, how late it is! It will be almost dark when I get home. It gets dark so quickly, nowadays, after it once begins."

She rose a little hastily, but she gave the island a very long last look, as she closed her portfolio, long enough for a bystander to have read her name, in gilt letters, on the leather cover, "Percie Lee." But no one was there to read, for a lonelier spot than that it would have been hard to find, however well adapted it might be for the making of marine sketches.

Percie was in the road in half a minute more, and she could but see that the shadows were lengthening rapidly. She reflected: "It is lonely for a little way beyond Dr. Gorham's, but I won't mind it from that to the village. I do hope I shall not meet Heber Gorham. I will not speak to him, if I do. I won't even see him. He has not called since he came back from Europe and I hope he never will again. I detest him."

She said it with needless energy, and then she began to walk briskly onward. She tried hard, too, to persuade herself that she was only wondering whether, in her sketch, she had made the horns of the cow bear a proper proportion to the upper branches of the tree on the island. She was really almost thinking sincerely about the cow, and the cow alone, when she suddenly felt called upon to exclaim, –

"Oh, that dog!

To be sure, that dog. Tsar was on the other side of the road and he did not seem to be taking any particular notice of her, but thus Percie truly remarked of him!

"He is perfectly enormous! "

She forgot about the cow in an instant, but she did not speak her opinion directly to the dog. Neither did she think of sketching him, although he was certainly worth it. She seemed hardly to care to look at him.

Tsar, on his part, had taken a good look at Percie Lee. He was not mistaken about her for one moment.

Very nice girl. Well dressed. Pretty, too; but she's out late. Most likely her family are friends of Dr. Gorham. I must have an eye on that young lady. It is getting dark.”

That eye was what startled Percie so dreadfully, a moment later; for she happened to look behind her, and there was that vast creature solemnly stalking after her.

"He is following me!" she exclaimed.

Not a doubt of it, and the fact that he stopped or went on just when she did hardly seemed to help the matter. It was getting darker and more shadowy every moment, and Percie would have been almost willing to run, if she had not feared that if she did the dog would run too. He appeared larger and larger, every time she glanced behind her, until she was afraid to look again, and her breathing grew a little hurried. "Nobody's any business to have such a dog!" she gasped, in a whisper. "It's awful."

"She seems to be scared about something," thought Tsar. "Girls are apt to be timid. Ah, I see! It's those ragged rascals, coming down the road. Villainous-looking vagabonds. If there is anything in this world that I hate, it is a tramp."

That is a universal sentiment, among dogs of Tsar's social standing; but the three ruffians who were now approaching were either ignorant of that fact, or did not know that such a dog was so very near.

"Dreadful men!" had been the unspoken thought in the mind of Percie Lee, and it was followed by a doubt as to whether she should ever again dare to come down to the cove.

"I must sketch the island," she said, "but I will come in the forenoon."

The three men were walking abreast, now, and they were plainly determined

not to turn to the right hand or the left for Percie Lee. She had just time to grasp that terrible idea and to feel her heart jump, when one of them actually spoke to her.

She never knew what he said, and her only reply, as she retreated a few steps was an altogether unintended little scream. It was not a loud one, and there was more surprise in it than fear, but it was followed by remarkable consequences.

Tsar had quickened his lordly pace, full twenty seconds earlier, and, for some reason of his own, he had advanced a little under the shadow of the fence; but his eyes had not wandered from the human beings in the road before him. His head and tail were raised a trifle, and there was a very peculiar expression on his broad, hairy face. There was no love of tramps in it at all.

"Oh now, we hain't hurt you. You need n't squall."

That was what the second of those three ruffians began to say, when an awful, wrathful, roaring growl, as of warning, sounded from some deep-jawed cavern among the shadows at the right of Percie Lee. It was followed, in one long, elastic, power-expressing bound, by a huge dark form that in one second more was crouching in front of her.

The first and second tramp upset the third, and tumbled over him, so sudden was the retreat they made, while Tsar, for their special benefit and more at length, repeated his growl, with a supplementary snarl that sounded fearfully like the announcement of another spring forward.

The remarks made by all of those vagabonds, as they scrambled to their feet, were in a manner complimentary to Tsar, although not intended to be so.

Percie Lee stood behind her protector, and she could not see, as they did, the white rows of gleaming teeth and the fierce green light in the threatening eyes. She could perfectly understand,

however, that there was an enormous amount of very good dog between her and any further approach of ruffianly insolence. She was almost astonished at the sudden feeling of security which came upon her and at the entire ease with which she began to breathe again. Tsar did not spring. He did but crouch in that picturesque attitude until the nearest tramp was fifty yards away, on a steady run; and then he stood erect, sending after his enemies one deep, sonorous "Woof-oof," to keep them company.

"Good dog! good fellow!"

"Ur-r-r-r," was the gentle response of Tsar, and he even wagged his tail, moderately, but he did not condescend to look around. He walked slowly on up the road, and it was now Percie's turn to follow him.

But how did he happen to be out? Unmuzzled, too. I remember, now. All my fault."

"I guess he must have been left out to take care of me, doctor."

"Ain't I glad of it, though! Now, Miss Lee, you must step right into my buggy, and let me carry you home. Tsar, go home, sir!"

He turned to obey, but a small, white hand was on his head as he did so.

"Good dog, Tsar; thank you, sir." It was odd, indeed, but something in that remark seemed aimed at the dog; and it must have hit him, too, by the proud way of his walking off; hut some of it went further. The young physician assisted Percie into the buggy, and drove away; and it was quite a distance around the corner of the main road that they passed a dimly discernible and quite breathless group that leaned against a fence. Nobody going by in a buggy could have heard them mutter,

Tell ye what, boys, that was the awfullest dog I ever seen."

"Guess we won't try that there road agin to-night. He's loose."

"All them sort o' dogs has got to be killed off, or the roads won't be safe."

Perhaps, but at that moment Tsar was reëntering his own yard, for he went straight back to his quarters. He stood for a moment turning over his empty muzzle with his paw, and then lay heavily down. He thought he understood the entire matter, now.

"Heber Gorham knew that that young lady would be in need of me. It's all right, but I doubt if I did my whole duty. Unmuzzled, too. A lost opportunity!"

As to the tramps, yes, but not as to all other parts of his performance. He hardly knew how it afterwards came to pass, but before long he discovered that he had formed a habit of going down to the cove with Percie Lee, to see her take sketches of islands, trees, waves, cows, and other matters and things, and

Lee; and then to recognize her as a permanent addition to his own household at the old Gorham homestead. He agreed to it. He had liked that young woman from the first time he saw her. And so, to tell the truth, had his mas William O. Stoddard.

Of all those who extended and widened the path of Columbus, I have always thought that Vasco Nuñez, "silent upon a peak in Darien," fronting an unknown ocean, was the most favored. I can only wonder at the sordid presence of mind with which he hastened to inform the new-found sea of its vassalage to the crown of Castile. It would seem that in such elemental prospect there could be small suggestion of human supremacy. No configuration of the land, neither the majesty of mountains nor the airy spaciousness of plains, so moves us as does the sea, with its sublime unity and its unresting motion. What is true of the sea, as regards this exalted first impression, may as justly be claimed for any body of water which the vision is unable to span, may be claimed for Erie, which, as well as its companion Great Lakes, fully deserves to be called a "fresh-water sea." For the hundredth time beholding it, I feel the thrill of discovery, and drink in the refreshing prospect as with thirsty Old World eyes. "Who poured all that water out there?" a child's question on first seeing the Lake, best embodies the primitive wonderment and pleasure which the sight still retains ror me. I am not chagrined as I reflect that, of this inland water system, this Broad River traveling under many aliases, Erie is reckoned the shallowest: if its depth were greater, would it not hinder the

present experiment? It is already deeper than my sounding-line is long.

I fall on paradox in saying that ordinarily I am not within sight of the Lake, though quite constantly residing upon one of its beaches. It is proper to state that this beach is at present four good miles from highest water-mark; that at a very early period it was abandoned by the Lake; was dry land, clothed with sward and forest, a very long time before any red settlement, to say nothing of the white, was established hereabouts. A great stone bowl or basin the master mechanic Glacier originally scooped out to hold this remnant of the ancient continental sea. Its successive shrinkings are plainly marked on the sides of the bowl in continuous lines of rilievo, which, according as they are slight or bold, the geologist terms ridges or terraces. That these are the Lake's old beaches is now generally accepted. That this region was once swept by the waves is evident from the frequency of sand and gravel beds and other earthy deposits, which may be reckoned the impedimenta dropped and left behind in the Retreat of Erie's Ten Thousand. East and west roads follow the ridges; from which at various points the traveler most fitly sights the far-retired water.

In approaching the Lake, long before the blue ribbon that binds the northern horizon appears above the land verge, you should know by the quick, spring