would be wuth ten thousand dollars."

While regarding the valuation as somewhat high, we yet regretted our
inability to profit by this unexpected though promising
business-opportunity, and soon our attention was diverted by a glimpse
of the judge's adobe, and that person himself standing by his carriage
and awaiting our by no means rapid approach. He was about to go to town,
and the oats were being sown by an individual of the same nationality as
our driver, to whom the latter addressed such encouraging remarks as
"Git right 'long dere now and sow dat oats. Don't stand roostin' on de
fence all day, like as you had the consumshing. You look powerful weak.
Guess mebbe I'd better come over dere and show you how."

[Illustration: THE JUDGE.]

Judge Bradford's career has been a chequered one, and it has fallen to
his lot to dispense justice in places and under circumstances as
various as could well be imagined. Born in Maine in 1815, he has lived
successively in Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado, and held almost
every position open to the profession of the law. From the supreme
bench of Colorado he was twice called to represent the Territory as
delegate to Congress. In 1852, when he was judge of the Sixth Judicial
District of Iowa, his eccentricities of character seem to have reached
their full development. He exhibited that supreme disregard for dress
and the various social amenities which not infrequently betray the
superior mind. Never were his clothes known to fit, being invariably
too large or too small, too short or too long. As to his hair, the
external evidences were of a character to disprove the rumor that he
had a brush and comb, while the stubby beard frequently remained
undisturbed upon the judicial chin for several weeks at a time. The