letter V, and built a framework of poles between them. This frame they

covered with bales of hay and suspended other bales from it clear to the ground. There was room within this curious fort for twenty men, and loopholes were left in the front sides for firing through as they slowly propelled it forward. It was the intention to roll this up within throwing distance of the ranch buildings, and then to demolish them with dynamite bombs.

On Thursday morning, just at sunrise, the ponderous engine began to crawl forward on its half-mile journey. Slowly but surely it crept along, till at ten o’clock it was less than three hundred yards from the ranch. In vain did the White Caps concentrate their fire on the moving fortress; their bullets were absorbed by the hay as water by a sponge. Inside the beleaguered ranch all was excitement and terror. Only too well did they know the fate that awaited them unless the grim monster advancing on them was checked. Benton called his boys together. “Boys, we must stop that fort or die like rats in a trap,” he said. “I want twenty men to follow me. Each will take a torch in one hand and his six-shooter in the other, and I promise one thousand dollars to the first man to fire the hay walls of the fort.”

The moving fort was now less than a hundred yards from the house, and the furious fire from the hills and pits that had covered its advance died down as the Rustlers lay, with their loaded rifles silent, waiting for some move on the part of the White Caps.

Within the ranch-house all was quiet. The twenty men selected for the dash stood with their right hands clenched around the butts of their heavy Colts and their lefts grasping kerosene-soaked torches. All eyes were fixed on their leader, who stood next to big Ben Williams, who was noiselessly removing the bars from the door. “Ready, boys!” came in clear, low tones from Benton as the last bar was lifted from its socket. Every man braced himself for the leap--ready, in fact, anxious, to have the dreadful suspense at an end, though each well knew that the opening of the door would be a signal for five hundred rifles to sweep the space between the house and the fort with a perfect hail of lead. Quickly the door swung open, and Benton leaped out. His eyes swept the surrounding hills; then he turned and tried to leap back into the protection of the log walls again. But all in vain! Quicker than thought came a flash of fire from a loophole in the fort, and Benton fell in the doorway with a bullet from Tom Champion’s rifle through his lungs.

“Keep back, boys!” he gasped. “Stay inside. You’re saved--the troops are coming.” They dragged him in, but these were his last words; the heavy hand of the avenging angel had fallen on him, and he had gone for a final reckoning.

“To the loopholes, boys!” shouted Williams, who had now taken command. “Shoot as you never shot before. If we can hold them in check for five minutes we are saved.”

From loopholes and cracks thirty-five rifles concentrated their fire on the hay fort, and the furious storm of lead caused Champion and the twenty men behind the bales to lie low and hug the ground. They knew that the fire could not long be sustained at that rate, and that when it slackened they could advance with fewer casualties. Glancing from a loophole to the north, Tom Champion saw two lines of brown-coated men, riding furiously in the midst of a cloud of dust, sweep over the hills less than a mile away. “Boys, the troops are coming!” he shouted. “Quick! light a fuse and try a throw from here.”

Hastily the bomb was prepared and thrown. The five-pound parcel of dynamite circled through the air and fell only ten feet short of the wall. For an instant there was silence; then came the explosion, and for a few minutes all was hid in a blinding cloud of dust. When it settled it revealed a gaping hole in the side of the house and the dim forms of men inside striving desperately to replace the dislocated logs.

“To the loopholes, boys! Pick them off!” cried Champion, but before a shot could be fired, between them and the house swept a line of cavalry, and the fight at the A---T had passed into history.

Clothed in the uniform and authority of the United States army, fifty men from the Thirteenth Cavalry robbed five hundred raging Rustlers of their prey. No true American can fire on the army uniform, and cursing and furious, but powerless to interfere, the Rustlers could only stand by and watch thirty-five men--all that were left of the invaders--come forth and surrender themselves to Captain Watterson and his men, to be transported to Cheyenne for trial for the murder of Ray, Champion, and others. They were ultimately released without the formality of a trial after some of the moneyed cattle kings had conferred with the State officials.

Dr. Hays, Ben Williams, and other of the leading cattlemen fled from the country, never to return. Their buildings were burned, their horses and cattle shot on sight by the Rustlers, while their calves bore the brand of the first man to see them. Many a wealthy rancher in that district to-day owes his start to the calves he gathered up when the big outfits went to pieces.

So ended one of the most sanguinary cattle wars that the West has ever witnessed. All that remains to-day to recall it is a group of bullet-scarred buildings, surrounded by weed-grown rifle-pits, some two hours’ ride south-east of Buffalo, near the junction of Muddy Creek with the north fork of the Crazy Woman.

THE WIDE WORLD: In Other Magazines

A HETEROGENEOUS COLLECTION.

For one wishing to study the ways of the lowest dregs of this earth, I would advise him to give the slums of London a rest, and watch the throngs who besiege the offices of the agents who undertake to supply the cattlemen with help at Montreal. German and Russian Jews, Dukhobhors, Italians, negroes, Dr. Barnardo boys, homesick for their beloved slums; broken-down “sharks” and “confidence men” from the large cities of the States; one-time moneyed youths from the larger English towns, who have run through the capital given them to start in business, and are returning on the chance of getting more. All bustling and hustling each other after the same prize--a free passage to London, the home, and often the grave, of the desperate.--“THE CAPTAIN.”

TRAVELLING IN ICELAND.

By the average individual (unless he happens to be a salmon-fisher) Iceland is imagined to be a place somewhere within the region of the Arctic Circle and to be a land of eternal winter. The fishing enthusiast knows it only as a paradise of his craft and values it accordingly. Some tourists visit the island for a week or so in summer, and get as far as Thingvellir, or if they are not too saddle-sore they may see Geysir. But only a very select few have travelled for weeks on the hardy little ponies and known to the full the exceeding delight of day after day spent in the wonderful Icelandic air and of riding through the green valleys and fording the numberless rivers and streams of Iceland. To those who can ride and are keen on an open-air life and who are lovers of scenery the island should appeal, and this should apply even more so to those tired of the ways of cities, for there are no railways in Iceland, no motors, and there were until very recently no telegraphs.--“WOMAN’S LIFE.”

A LUCKY FALL OF SNOW.

On the Trans-Siberian Railway not long ago some train-wreckers, anticipating the Continental express, had been busily engaged for some hours tearing up the permanent way. But, in the meantime, so heavy a fall of snow had occurred that the mail had been completely blocked some few miles before reaching the work of destruction. In this way the robbers were defeated of their prey, and the gangs of workmen who afterwards went out to clear the line discovered the damage on digging away the snow.--“TIT-BITS.”

WOMEN’S SPORT IN SWEDEN.

In no other European country do sports occupy so large a place in women’s lives as they do in Sweden. This is especially the case in winter, when traffic and social intercourse are hindered by the snow and, but for outdoor games and exercises, life in the great castles and country estates would be monotonous and dull for the women of the upper classes. This is the time, however, when the Swedish ladies most enjoy themselves, for they pass their days in skating, skiing, tobogganing, coasting, and in training for the races which take place at Stockholm and in most of the more populated parts of the country.--“THE LADIES’ FIELD.”

AN UNCONVENTIONAL AMUSEMENT.

The “Mengeleusha,” or “slippery place,” near Kuala Kangsar, Perak, Federated Malay States, is a solid piece of granite, about seventy or eighty feet long, standing in a stream of water and forming a sort of waterfall. The water flowing down this rock makes it as slippery as glass, and the amusement is to slide down the rock and splash into the pool beneath. This snapshot shows an Englishman half-way down the slide.--“THE STRAND MAGAZINE.”

Odds and Ends.

A Battle-Royal “You Dirty Boy”--Bavarian “Death-Boards”--An Extraordinary Sacrifice, etc., etc.

Our first photograph represents what must have been a battle-royal, and one which ended fatally for all concerned. It took place during the night, in the back yard of a house in Central Queensland, Australia, and the combatants were all found dead in the morning exactly as seen in the photograph. It is supposed that the snake must have bitten the kitten, and the mother cat, coming to its rescue, fought the snake and broke its back, but not before she had been fatally bitten herself. Cats are well known to be very clever at breaking snakes’ backs with their claws.

The top snapshot on the next page was taken during a tramp through the jungly district around Sourabaya, a small town in Java. The picture shows a Javanese woman washing her child under a falling stream of water. Evidently the youngster is not enjoying the performance, and evinces his disapproval of the proceedings by kicking out in all directions and struggling vigorously. As a result of these contortions the outline of his body in the picture is rather obscure. It is interesting to note how the water has been brought to the rudely-constructed circle of masonry which serves as a reservoir. Having no system of pipes to facilitate the distribution of water, the natives fall back on Nature to assist them in this direction. They cut down betelnut trees, split them in half from top to bottom, and scoop out the inside substance, thus making a series of cylindrical troughs. These are dried in the sun, after which a number of them, joined end to end and placed at a gentle slope, will convey water from any natural source to within convenient distance of a village or group of houses. The end of one of these artificial water-courses is seen in the picture.

Here is a curious little snapshot from Java. The ancient cannon seen in the photograph is situated near the railway station at Batavia, the capital of the island, and is believed by the natives to possess the peculiar power--particularly strange in the case of so incongruous an object as a cannon--of enabling childless married people to raise a family. In pursuance of this strange belief many offerings are placed by the superstitious near the cannon; three are seen in the foreground of the photograph. Another legend which attaches to this particular gun is to the effect that when it and another piece of ordnance, which is also situated somewhere in the island, are brought together, the Javanese will become a great and independent nation.

In the eastern half of Bavaria, on the borders of Bohemia, lies the so-called Bavarian Forest. This part of the country, although it boasts beautiful scenery, is seldom visited by tourists, probably for the reason that the charms of the region are little known even in Germany. This part of Bavaria has been in many ways untouched by civilization, and owing to its seclusion from the outer world some very strange customs are still in vogue, strongly reminding one of the Middle Ages. One of these strange customs, strictly observed by the population, is the way in which they keep alive the memory of their dead by the erection of what are called “totenbretter,” or “death-boards.” These are wooden planks cut in the shape of tombstones and roughly painted. Sometimes they bear also the image of a saint. They are erected--often in a row of thirty and more--on the roadside, in fields and meadows, near chapels and crucifixes, in the village streets--in short, everywhere; they are even nailed to houses and barns. They do not mark burial-places, as might be supposed. As soon as a person has died the corpse is put on a board, and there it lies in state until it is put into the coffin shortly before the funeral. These boards, then, are the so-called “death-boards,” and after the funeral they are cut into a suitable shape, and decorated with an inscription containing the name of the deceased, his age, and, in most cases, some lines of poetry. These short poems, which are, of course, meant in sober earnest, are occasionally very amusing. The boards are then stuck somewhere near the road, or in the fields, where they sometimes accumulate to an alarming number. In the poorer districts these boards are not always cut into shape and painted, but are simply deposited just as they are at the foot of some crucifix, where they remain untouched until they moulder away. It must be admitted that the custom, though interesting, seems open to objection from a hygienic point of view, nor is it very exhilarating for the tourist to be reminded of death wherever he may turn.

This wonderful fungus, found in the Garo Hills in Assam, has been supplied by Nature with a delicate network of fine translucent material, which seems to be intended to protect the stalk from the attacks of insect life. The head of the plant, on the other hand, is covered with some substance which attracts minute flies in great numbers. For further defence Nature has given this weird fungus the power of spreading around it a most offensive smell.

The beautiful white tracery grows up in the night, commences to droop as soon as the first rays of the sun reach it, and by midday has entirely withered away.

Old customs die very hard in China, and in several parts of the Celestial Empire it is still considered a high act of virtue for a woman to commit suicide after the death of her husband. According to the law the proceeding is actually legal in some provinces, and such is the state of public opinion that in districts where it is officially prohibited the authorities rarely interfere. The striking photograph which we reproduce on this page shows one of these extraordinary voluntary sacrifices about to take place, with the widow herself, clad in white--the Chinese mourning colour--the gallows erected for the occasion, and the immense crowd gathered to witness the gruesome spectacle.

The desert bordering on the Colorado River, in Southern Arizona, is probably the hottest part of the United States in summer, where the condition humorously generalized at “a hundred and forty in the shade, and no shade,” prevails from June until September. The intense heat of the sun-baked houses then makes them unbearable even at night to the average sleeper, and open-air sleeping apartments are accordingly needful for comfort. The photograph shows one of these airy adjuncts to a desert home. The wire screen that encloses the little room, like a bird-cage, serves to keep out pestiferous insects, snakes, and other vermin.

Transcriber's Note:

Table of Contents added.

Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.