"It's bad," he sighed—"a man cu'd do so much mo' in life if he didn't hafter waste so much time arguin' with fools. Well, I'm here fur the day an' I'll learn somethin'. Now, I wanter know if one squirrel er two squirrels stays in the same hole in winter. Then there's the wild-duck. I wanter kno' when the mallards go south."

In a few minutes he had hid himself behind a tree in a clump of brush. He was silent for ten minutes, so silent that only the falling leaves could be heard. Then very cautiously he imitated the call of the gray squirrel—once, twice, and still again. He had not long to wait. In a hole high up in a hickory a little gray head popped out—then a squirrel came out cautiously—first its head, then half of its body, and each time it moved looking and listening, with its cunning, bright eyes, taking in everything. Then it frisked out with a flirt of its tail, and sat on a limb nearby. It was followed by another and another. Archie B. watched them for a half hour, a satisfied smile playing around his lips. He was studying squirrel. He saw them run into the hole again and bring out each a nut and sit on a nearby limb and eat it.

"That settles that," he said to himself. "I thought they kept their nuts in the same hole."

There was the sound of voices behind him and the squirrels vanished. Archie B. stood up and saw an old man and some children gathering nuts.

"It's the Bishop an' the little mill-mites. I'll bet they've brought their dinner."

This was the one thing Archie B. needed to make his day in the woods complete.

"Hello," he shouted, coming up to them.

"Why, it's Archie B.," said Shiloh, delighted.

"Why, it is," said her grandfather. "What you doin', Archie B.?"

"Studyin' squirrels right now. What you all doin'?"

"I've tuck the kids out of the mill an' I'm givin' 'em their fus' day in the woods. Shiloh, there, has been mighty sick and is weak yet, so we're goin' slow. Mighty glad to run upon you, Archie B. Can't you sho' Shiloh the squirrels? She's never seed one yet, have you, pet?"

"No," said Shiloh thoughtfully. "Is they like them little jorees that say Wake-up, pet! Wake-up, pet? Oh, do sho' me the squirrel! Mattox, ain't this jes' fine, bein' out of the mill?"

Archie B.'s keen glance took in the well-filled lunch basket. At once he became brilliantly entertaining. In a few minutes he had Shiloh enraptured at the wood-lore he told her,—even Bull Run and Seven Days, Atlanta and Appomattox were listening in amazement, so interesting becomes nature's story when it finds a reader.

And so all the morning Archie B. went with them, and never had they seen so much and enjoyed a day as they had this one.

And the lunch—how good it tasted! It was a new life to them. Shiloh's color came in the healthful exercise, and even Bull Run began to look out keenly from his dull eyes.

After lunch Shiloh went to sleep on a soft carpet of Bermuda grass with the old man's coat for a blanket, while the other children waded in the branch, and gathered nuts till time to go back home.

It was nearly sun-down when they reached the gate of the little hut on the mountain.

"We must do this often, Archie B.," said the Bishop, as the children went in, tired and hungry, leaving him and Archie B. at the gate. "I've never seed the little 'uns have sech a time, an' it mighty nigh made me young ag'in."

All afternoon Archie B. had been thinking. All day he had felt the lumpy, solid thing in the innermost depths of his jeans pocket, which told him one hundred dollars in gold lay there, and that it would need an explanation when he reached home or he was in for the worst whipping he ever had. Knowing this, he had not been thinking all the afternoon for nothing. The old man bade him good-night, but still Archie B. lingered, hesitated, hung around the gate.

"Won't you come in, Archie B.?"

"No-o—thank you, Bishop, but I'd—I'd like to, really tho', jes' to git a little spirt'ul g'idance"—a phrase he had heard his father use so often.

"Why, what's the matter, Archie B.?"

Archie B. rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I'm—I'm—thinkin' of j'inin' the church, Bishop."

"Bless yo' h'art—that's right. I know'd you'd quit yo' mischeev'us ways an' come in—an' I honor you fur it, Archie B.—praise the Lord!"

Archie B. still stood pensive and sobered:

"But a thing happened to-day, Bishop, an' it's worryin' me very much. It makes me think, perhaps—I—ain't—ain't worthy of—the bestowal of—the grace—you know, the kind I heard you speak of?"

"Tell me, Archie B., lad—an' I'll try to enlighten you in my po' way."

"Well, now; it's this—jes' suppose you wus goin' along now—say to school, an' seed a dorg, say his name was Bonaparte, wantin' to eat up a little monkey; an' a lot of fellers, say like Jud Carpenter an' Billy Buch, a-bettin' he cu'd do it in ten minutes an' a-sickin' him on the po' little monkey—this big savage dorg. An' suppose now you feel sorry for the monkey an' somethin'—you can't tell what—but somethin' mighty plain tells you the Lord wus on the monkey's side—so plain you cu'd read it—like it told David—an' the dorg wus as mean an' bostful as Goliath wus—"

"Archie B., my son, I'd a been fur the monkey, I sho' would," said the Bishop impressively.

Archie B. smiled: "Bishop, you've called my hand—I wus for that monkey."

The old man smiled approvingly: "Good—good—Archie B."

"Now, what happened? I'm mighty inter'sted—oh, that is good. I'm bettin' the monkey downed him, the Lord bein' on his side."

"But, s'pose furst," went on Archie B. argumentatively, "that you wanted to give some money fur a little church that you wanted to j'ine—up on the mountain side, a little po'-fo'k church, that depended on charity—"

"I understan's, I understan's, Archie B., that wus the Lord's doin's,—ten to one on the monkey, Archie—ten to one!"

"An' that you had ten dollars in gold around yo' neck in a little bag, given you by your ole Granny when she died—an' knowin' how the Lord wus for the monkey, an' it bein' a dead cinch, an' all that—an' these fellers blowin' an' offerin' to bet ten to one—an' seein' you c'ud pick it up in the road—all for the little church, mind you, Bishop—"

"Archie B.," exclaimed the old man excitedly, "them bein' the facts an' the thing at stake, with that ole dorg an' Jud Carpenter at the bottom of it, I'd a put it up on the monkey, son—fur charity, you know, an' fur the principle of it,—I'd a put it up, Archie B., if I'd lost ever' cent!"

"Exactly, Bishop, an' I did—at ten to one—think of the odds! Ten to one, mighty nigh as great as wus ag'in David."

"An' you won, of course, Archie B., you won in a walk?" said the old man breathlessly. "God was fur you an' the monkey."

Archie B. smiled triumphantly and pulled out his handful of gold. The old man sat down on a log, dazed.

"Archie B., sho'ly, sho'ly, not all that? An' licked the dorg, an' that gang, an' cleaned 'em up?"

Archie B. told him the story with all the quaint histrionic talent of his exuberant nature.

The Bishop sat and laughed till the tears came.

"An' Bonaparte went down the road with the monkey holt his tail—the champion dorg—an' you won all that?"

"All fur charity, Bishop, except, you know, part fur keeps as a kinder nes' egg."

"Of co-u-r-se—Archie B., of—course, no harm in the worl'—if—if—my son—if you carry out your original ideas, or promise, ruther; it won't work if you go back on yo' promise to God. 'God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform,'" added the Bishop solemnly.

Archie B. slipped fifty of his dollars into the old man's hands.

"Do you know, Archie B., I prayed for this las' night? Now you tell me God don't answer prayers?"

He was silent, touched. Seldom before had a prayer of his been answered so directly.

"Fur charity, Archie B., fur charity. I'll take it, an' little you know what this may mean."

Archie B. was silent. So far so good, but it was plain from his still thoughtful looks that he had only half won out yet. He had heard the old man speak, and there had been a huskiness about his voice.

"Now there is paw, Bishop—you know he ain't jes like you—he don't see so far. He might not understan' it. Would you mind jes' droppin' him a line, you know? I'll take it to him—in case he looks at the thing differently, you know, fur whut you write will go a long way with him."

The old man smiled: "Of course, Archie B.—he must understan' it. Of course, it 'ud never do to have him spile as good a thing as that—an' fur charity, all fur the Lord—"

"An' why I didn't go to school, helpin' you all in the woods," put in Archie B.

"Of course, Archie B., why of course, my son; I'll fix it right."

And he scribbled a few lines on the fly leaf of his note book for Archie B. to take home:

"God bless you, my son, good-night."

Archie B. struck out across the fields jingling his remaining gold and whistling. At home it was as he expected. Patsy met him at the gate. One look into her expectant face showed him that she was delighted at the prospect of his punishment. It was her hope deferred, now long unfulfilled. He had always gotten out before, but now—

"Walk in, Mister Gambler, Mr. Hookey—walk in—paw is waitin' fur you," she said, smirking.

The Deacon stood in the door, silent, grim, determined. In his hand were well-seasoned hickories. By him stood his wife more silent, more grim, more determined.

"Pull off yo' coat, Archie B.," said the Deacon, "I'm gwinter lick you fur gamblin'."

"Pull off yo' coat, Archie B.," said his mother, "I'm goin' to lick you fur playin' hookey."

"Pull it off, Archie B.," said his sister bossily, "I'm goin' to stan' by an' see."

Archie B. pulled off his coat deliberately.

"That's all right," he said, "Many a man has been licked befo' fur bein' on the Lord's side."

"You mean to tell me, Archie B. Butts, you bet on a dorg fight sho' nuff," said his father, nervously handling his hickories.

"An' played hookey?" chimed in his mother.

"Tell it, Archie B., tell the truth an' shame the devil," mocked Patsy.

"Yes, I done all that—fur charity," he said boldly, and with a victorious ring in his voice.

"Did you put up that ten dollars yo' Granny lef' you?" screamed his mother.

"Did you dare, Archie B.," said Patsy.

His father paled at the thought of it: "An' lost it, Archie B., lost it, my son. Oh, I mus' teach you how sinful it is to gamble."

Archie B. replied by running his hand deep down into his pocket and bringing up a handful of gold—five eagles!

His father dropped the switches and stared. His mother sat down suddenly in a chair and Patsy reached out, took it and counted it deliberately:—

"One—two—three—fo'—five—an' all gold—my gracious, Maw!"

"That's jes' ha'f of it," said Archie B. indifferently. "I gave the old Bishop five of 'em—fur—charity. Here's his note."

The Deacon read it and rubbed his chin thoughtfully: "That's a different thing," he said after a while. "Entirely different proposition, my son."

"Yes, it 'pears to be," said his mother counting the gold again. "We'll jes' keep three of 'em, Archie B. They'll come in handy this winter."

"Put on yo' coat, my son," said the Deacon gently.

"Patsy, fetch him in the hot waffles an' syrup—the lad 'pears to be a leetle tired," said his mother.

"How many whippings did you git, Archie B.?" whispered his brother as Archie B., after entertaining the family for an hour, all about the great fight, crawled into bed: "I got three," went on Ozzie B. "Triggers fust, then paw, then maw."

"None," said Archie B., as he put his two pieces of gold under his pillow.

"I can't see why that was," wailed Ozzie B. "I done nothin' an'—an'—got all—all—the—lickin'!"

"You jes' reaped my whirlwind," sneered his brother—"All fools do!"

But later he felt so sorry for poor Ozzie B. because he could not lie on his back at all, that he gave him one of his beautiful coins to go to sleep.



CHAPTER XXVI

BEN BUTLER'S LAST RACE

It was the last afternoon of the fair, and the great race was to come off at three o'clock.

There is nothing so typical as a fair in the Tennessee Valley. It is the one time in the year when everybody meets everybody else. Besides being the harvest time of crops, of friendships, of happy interchange of thought and feeling, it is also the harvest time of perfected horseflesh.

The forenoon had been given to social intercourse, the display of livestock, the exhibits of deft women fingers, of housewife skill, of the tradesman, of the merchant, of cotton—cotton, in every form and shape.

At noon, under the trees, lunch had been spread—a bountiful lunch, spreading as it did from the soft grass of one tree to that of another—as family after family spread their linen—an almost unbroken line of fried chicken, flanked with pickles and salad, and all the rich profusion of the country wife's pantry.

And now, after lunch, the grand stand had been quickly filled, for the fame of the great race had spread up and down the valley, and the valley dearly loved a horse-race.

Five hundred dollars was considered a large purse, but this race was three thousand!

Three thousand! It would buy a farm. It would buy thirty mules, and twice that many steers. It would make a family independent for life.

And to-day it was given to see which one, of three rich men, owned the best horse.

No wonder that everybody for miles around was there.

Sturdy farmers with fat daughters, jaded wives, and lusty sons who stepped awkwardly on everything on the promenade, and in trying to get off stepped on themselves. They went about, with broad, strong, stooping shoulders, and short coats that sagged in the middle, dropping under-jaws, and eyes that were kindly and shrewd.

The town people were better dressed and fed than the country people, and but only half way in fashion between the city and country, yet knowing it not.

The infield around the judges' stand, and in front of the grand-stand, was thronged with surreys and buggies, and filled with ladies and their beaux. A ripple of excitement had gone up when Richard Travis drove up in a tally-ho. It was filled with gay gowns and alive with merriment and laughter, and though Alice Westmore was supposed to be on the driver's box with the owner, she was not there.

Tennesseans were there in force to back Flecker's gelding—Trumps, and they played freely and made much noise. Col. Troup's mare—Trombine—had her partisans who were also vociferous. But Travis's entry, Lizzette, was a favorite, and, when he appeared on the track to warm up, the valley shouted itself hoarse.

Then Flecker shot out of the draw-gate and spun merrily around the track, and Col. Troup joined him with Trombine, and the audience watched the three trotters warm up and shouted or applauded each as it spun past the grand-stand.

Then the starting-judge held up a silk bag in the center of the wire. It held three thousand dollars in gold, and it swung around and then settled, to a shining, shimmering silken sack, swaying the wire as it flashed in the sun.

The starting-judge clanged his bell, but the drivers, being gentlemen, were heedless of rules and drove on around still warming up.

The starting-judge was about to clang again—this time more positively—when there appeared at the draw-gate a new comer, the sight of whose horse and appointments set the grand-stand into a wild roar of mingled laughter and applause.

As he drove demurely on the track, he lifted quaintly and stiffly his old hat and smiled.

He was followed by the village blacksmith, whose very looks told that they meant business and were out for blood. The audience did not like the looks of this blacksmith—he was too stern for the fun they were having. But they recognized the shambling creature who followed him as Bud Billings, and they shouted with laughter when they saw he had a sponge and bucket!

"Bud Billings a swipe!"

Cottontown wanted to laugh, but it was too tired. It merely grinned and nudged one another. For Travis had given a half holiday and all Cottontown was there.

The old man's outfit brought out the greatest laughter. The cart was a big cheap thing, new and brightly repainted, and it rattled frightfully. The harness was a combination—the saddle was made of soft sheep skin, the wool next to the horse, as were also the head-stall of the bridle, the breast-strap and the breeching. The rest of it was undressed leather, and the old man had evidently made it himself.

But Ben Butler—never had he looked so fine. Blind, cat-hammed and pacing along,—but his sides were slick and hard, his quarters rubber.

The old man had not been training him on the sandy stretches of Sand Mountain for nothing.

A man with half an eye could have seen it, but the funny people in the grand-stand saw only the harness, and the blind sunken eyes of the old horse. So they shouted and cat-called and jeered. The outfit ambled up to the starting judge, and the old driver handed him fifty dollars.

The starter laughed as he recovered himself, and winking at the others, asked:

"What's this for, old man?"

"Oh, jes' thought I'd j'ine in—" smiling.

"Why, you can't do it. What's your authority?"

The Bishop ran his hand in his pocket, while Bud held Ben Butler's head and kept saying with comical seriousness: "Whoa—whoa, sah!"

Pending it all, and seeing that more talk was coming, Ben Butler promptly went to sleep. Finally the old man brought out a faded poster. It was Travis's challenge and conditions.

"Jes' read it," said the old driver, "an' see if I ain't under the conditions."

The starting judge read: "Open to the Tennessee Valley—trot or pace. Parties entering, other than the match makers, to pay fifty dollars at the wire."

"Phew!" said the starting judge, as he scratched his head. Then he stroked his chin and re-read the conditions, looking humorously down over his glasses at the queer combination before him.

The audience took it in and began to shout: "Let him in! Let him in! It's fair!"

But others felt outraged and shouted back: "No—put him out! Put him out!"

The starting judge clanged his bell again, and the other three starters came up.

Flecker, good-natured and fat, his horse in a warming-up foam, laughed till he swayed in the sulky. Col. Troup, dignified and reserved, said nothing. But Travis swore.

"It's preposterous!—it will make the race a farce. We're out for blood and that purse. This is no comedy," he said.

The old man only smiled and said: "I'm sorry to spile the sport of gentlemen, but bein' gentlemen, I know they will stan' by their own rules."

"It's here in black and white, Travis," said the starter, "You made it yourself."

"Oh, hell," said Travis hotly, "that was mere form and to satisfy the Valley. I thought the entrance fee would bar any outsider."

"But it didn't," said the Judge, "and you know the rules."

"Let him start, let the Hill-Billy start!" shouted the crowd, and then there was a tumult of hisses, groans and cat-calls.

Then it was passed from mouth to mouth that it was the old Cottontown preacher, and the excitement grew intense.

It was the most comical, most splendid joke ever played in the Valley. Travis was not popular, neither was the dignified Col. Troup. Up to this time the crowd had not cared who won the purse; nor had they cared which of the pretty trotters received the crown. It meant only a little more swagger and show and money to throw away.

But here was something human, pathetic. Here was a touch of the stuff that made the grand-stand kin to the old man. The disreputable cart, the lifeless, blind old pacer, the home-made harness, the seediness of it all—the pathos.

Here was the quaint old man, who, all his life, had given for others, here was the ex-overseer and the ex-trainer of the Travis stables, trying to win the purse from gentlemen.

"Ten to one," said a prosperous looking man, as he looked quietly on—"the Bishop wants it for charity or another church. Like as not he knows of some poverty-stricken family he's going to feed."

"If that's so," shouted two young fellows who were listening, and who were partisans of Flecker of Tennessee, "if that's the way of it, we'll go over and take a hand in seeing that he has fair play."

They arose hastily, each shifting a pistol in his pocket, and butted through the crowd which was thronged around the Judge's stand, where the old man sat quietly smiling from his cart, and Travis and Troup were talking earnestly.

"Damned if I let Trombine start against such a combination as that, sah. I'll drive off the track now, sah—damned if I don't, sah!"

But the two young men had spoken to big fat Flecker of Tennessee, and he arose in his sulky-seat and said: "Now, gentlemen, clear the track and let us race. We will let the old man start. Say, old man," he laughed, "you won't feel bad if we shut you out the fust heat, eh?"

"No," smiled the Bishop—"an' I 'spec you will. Why, the old hoss ain't raced in ten years."

"Oh, say, I thought you were going to say twenty," laughed Flecker.

Some rowdy had crowded around the old cart and attempted to unscrew the axle tap. But some one reached over the head of the crowd and gripped him where his shoulder and arm met, and pulled him forward and twirled him around like a top.

It was enough. It was ten minutes before he could lift up his arm at all; it felt dead.

"Don't hurt nobody, Jack," whispered the old man, "be keerful."

The crowd were for the old man. They still shouted—"Fair play, fair play—let him start," and they came thronging and crowding on the track.

"Clear the track," cried the starting-judge to a deputy sheriff in charge—"I'll let him start."

This set the crowd in a roar.

"Square man," they yelled—"Square man!"

Travis bit his lips and swore.

"Why, damn him," he said, "we'll lose him the first heat. I'll shut him out myself."

"We will, sah, we will!" said Col. Troup. "But if that rattling contraption skeers my mare, I'll appeal to the National Association, sah. I'll appeal—sah," and he drove off up the stretch, hotter than his mare.

And now the track was cleared—the grand stand hummed and buzzed with excitement.

It was indeed the greatest joke ever played in the Tennessee Valley. Not that there was going to be any change in the race, not that the old preacher had any chance, driving as he did this bundle of ribs and ugliness, and hitched to such a cart—but that he dared try it at all, and against the swells of horsedom. There would be one heat of desperate fun and then—

A good-natured, spasmodic gulp of laughter ran clear through the grand-stand, and along with it, from excited groups, from the promenade, from the track and infield and stables, even, came such expressions as these:

"Worth ten dollars to see it!"

"Wouldn't take a hoss for the sight!"

"If he did happen to beat that trio of sports!"

"Boss, it's gwinter to be a hoss race from wire to wire!"

"Oh, pshaw! one heat of fun—they'll shut him out!"

In heart, the sympathy of the crowd was all with the old preacher.

The old man had a habit when keyed to high pitch, emotionally, of talking to himself. He seemed to regard himself as a third person, and this is the way he told it, heat by heat:

"Fus' heat, Ben Butler—Now if we can manage to save our distance an' leave the flag a few yards, we'll be doin' mighty well. Long time since you stretched them ole muscles of yo's in a race—long time—an' they're tied up and sore. Ever' heat'll be a wuck out to you till you git hot. If I kin only stay in till you git hot—(Clang—clang—clang). That's the starter's bell. Yes—we'll score now—the fus' heat'll be our wuss. They've got it in fur us—they'll set the pace an' try to shet us out an', likely es not, do it. God he'p us—Shiloh—Cap'n Tom—it's only for them, Ben Butler—fur them. (Clang!—Clang!) Slow there—heh—heh—Steady—ah-h!"

Clang—clang-clang! vigorously. The starter was calling them back.

They had scored down for the first time, but the hot-heads had been too fast for the old ambler. In their desire to shut him out, they rushed away like a whirlwind. The old pacer followed, rocking and rolling in his lazy way. He wiggled, shuffled, skipped, and when the strain told on the sore old muscles, he winced, and was left at the wire!

The crowd jeered and roared with laughter.

"He'll never get off!"

"He's screwed there—fetch a screw driver!"

"Pad his head, he'll fall on it nex'!"

"Go back, gentlemen, go back," shouted the starter, "and try again. The old pacer was on a break"—Clang—clang—clang! and he jerked his bell vigorously.

Travis was furious as he drove slowly back. "I had to pull my mare double to stop her," he called to the starter. "We were all aligned but the old pacer—why didn't you let us go?"

"Because I am starting these horses by the rules, Mr. Travis. I know my business," said the starter hotly.

Col. Troup was blue in the face with rage.

Flecker laughed.

They all turned again and came down, the numbers on the drivers' arms showing 1, 2, 3, 4—Travis, Troup, Flecker, and the old Bishop, respectively.

"Ben Butler, ole hoss, this ain't no joke—you mus' go this time. We ain't goin' to meetin'—Stretch them ole legs as you did!—oh, that's better—ef we could only score a few more times—look!—ah!"

Clang—clang—clang!

This time it was Col. Troup's mare. She broke just at the wire.

"She saved us that time, Ben Butler. We wus two rods behind—"

They came down the third time. "Now, thank God, he's jes' beginnin' to unlimber," chuckled the old man as the old pacer, catching on to the game and warming to his work, was only a length behind at the wire, as they scored the fourth time, when Flecker's mare flew up in the air and again the bell clanged.

The crowd grew impatient. The starter warned them that time was up and that he'd start them the next time they came down if he had the ghost of a chance.

Again they aligned and came thundering down. The old man was pale and silent, and Ben Butler felt the lines telegraphing nervous messages to his bitted mouth; but all he heard was: "Shiloh—Cap'n Tom—Steady, old hoss!"

"Go!"

It sounded like a gun-shot in the old man's ears. There was a whirr of wheels, a patter of feet grappling with dirt and throwing it all over him—another whirr and flutter and buzz as of a covey flushed, and the field was off, leaving him trailing.

"Whew, Ben Butler, we're in fur it now—the Lord 'a-mussy on our souls! Take the pole—s'artenly,—it's all yowin, since you're behin'! Steady ole hoss, there's one consolation,—they're breakin' the wind for you, an' thank God!—yes Ben Butler, look! they're after one other,—they're racin' like Tam O'Shanter an' cookin' each other to a gnat's heel—Oh, Lord what fools! It'll tell on 'em—if we can only save our distance—this heat—jes' save our distance—Wh-o-p, sah! Oh, my Lord, told you so—Troup's mare's up an' dancin' like a swamp rabbit by moonlight. Who-op, sah, steady ole hoss—there now we've passed him—Trombine and Lizette ahead—steady—let 'em go, big devil, little devil, an' pumpin' each other—Go now, go old hoss, now's the time to save our distance—go old hoss, step lively now—'tain't no meetin', no Sunday School—it's life, bread and a chance for Cap'n Tom! Oh, but you ain't forgot entirely, no-no,—ain't forgot that you come in answer to prayer, ain't forgot that half in one-one, ain't forgot yo' pious raisin', yo' pedigree. Ain't forgot you're racin' for humanity an' a chance, ain't forgot—there! the flag—my God and safe!"

He had passed the flag. Lizzette and Trombine were already at the wire, but poor Troup—his mare had never been able to settle after her wild break, and she caught the flag square in the face.

The crowd met the old pacer with a yell of delight. He had not been shut out—marvel of marvels!

It was getting interesting indeed.

Bud and Jack met him with water and a blanket. How proud they were! But the heavy old cart had told on Ben Butler. He panted like a hound, he staggered and was distressed.

"He'll get over that," said the old driver cheerily to Bud's tearful gaze—"he ain't used to it yet—ten years, think of it," and Jack led Ben Butler blanketed away.

The old man looked at the summary the judges had hung up. It was:

1st Heat: Trumps, 1st; Lizzette, 2nd; Ben Butler, 3rd; Trombine distanced. Time, 2:17-1/2.

Then he heard a man swearing elegantly. It was Col. Troup. He was sitting in his sulky in front of the grand stand and talking to Travis and the genial Flecker:

"A most unprofessional thing, gentlemen,—damned unprofessional, sah, to shut me out. Yes, sah, to shut out a gentleman, sah, an' the first heat, sah, with his horse on a break."

"What!" said Flecker excitedly—"you, Col'nel? Shut out—why, I thought it was the old pacer."

"I swear I did, too, Colonel," said Travis apologetically. "I heard something rattling and galloping along—I thought it was the old pacer and I drove like the devil to shut him out!"

"It was me, sah, me! damned unprofessional, sah; my mare throwed a boot!"

He walked around and swore for ten minutes. Then he quieted down and began to think. He was shut out—his money was gone. But—"By gad, sah," he said cracking his whip—"By gad I'll do it!"

Ten minutes later as Ben Butler, cooled and calm, was being led out for the second heat, Col. Troup puffed boisterously up to the Bishop: "Old man, by gad, sah, I want you to use my sulky and harness. It's a hundred pounds lighter than that old ox-cart you've got. I'm goin' to he'p you, sah, beat that pair of short dogs that shets out a gentleman with his horse on a break, sah!"

And that was how the old man drew first blood and came out in a new sulky and harness.

How proud Ben Butler seemed to feel! How much lighter and how smoothly it ran!

They got the word at the first score, Trumps and Lizzette going at it hammer and tongs—Ben Butler, as usual, trailing.

The old man sat pale and ashy, but driving like the born reinsman that he was.

"Steady, old hoss, steady agin'—jes' save our distance, that's all—they've done forgot us—done forgot us—don't know we're here. They'll burn up each other an' then, oh, Ben Butler, God he'p us! Cap'n Tom, Cap'n Tom an' Shiloh! Steady, whoa there!—Lord, how you're lar'nin'! How the old clip is comin' agin! Ho—hi—there ole hoss—here we are—what a bresh of speed he's got—hi—ho!"

And the grand-stand was cheering again, and as the old man rode up the judges hung out:

2nd Heat: Trumps, 1st; Lizzette, 2nd; Ben Butler, 3rd. Time, 2:15-1/2.

The old man looked at it in wonder: "Two fifteen an' not shet out, Ben Butler? Only five lengths behind? My God, can we make it—can we make it?"

His heart beat wildly. For the first time he began to hope.

Trumps now had two heats. As the race was best three out of five, one more heat meant that Flecker of Tennessee would win the race and the purse. But when the old man glanced at Trumps, his experienced eye told him the gallant gelding was all out—he was distressed greatly—in a paroxyism of thumps. He glanced at Lizzette. She was breathing freely and was fresh. His heart fell.

"Trumps is done fur, Ben Butler, but Lizzette—what will Travis do?—Ah, ole hoss, we're up ag'in it!"

It was too true, as the next heat proved. Away Trumps and Lizzette went, forgetful of all else, while the old man trailed behind, talking to, soothing, coaxing the old horse and driving him as only a master could.

"They're at it ag'in—ole hoss, what fools! Whoa—steady there! Trumps is done fur, an' you'll see—No sand left in his crops, cooked—watch an' see, oh, my, Ben Butler—there—he's up now—up an' done fur—Go now—move some—hi—"

Trumps and Lizzette had raced it out to the head of the stretch. But Trumps was not equal to the clip which Travis had made cyclonic, knowing the horse was sadly distressed. Trumps stood it as long as flesh and blood could, and then jumped into the air, in a heart-broken, tired break. It was then that the old man began to drive, and moving like well-balanced machinery, the old pacer caught again the spirit of his youth, as the old time speed came back, and leaving Trumps behind he even butted his bull-dog nose into the seat of Lizzette's sulky, and clung determinedly there, right up to the wire, beaten only by a length.

Lizzette had won the heat. The judge hung out:

3rd Heat: Lizzette, 1st; Ben Butler, 2nd; Trumps distanced. Time, 2:20.

Lizzette had won, but the crowd had begun to see.

"The old pacer—the old pacer!"—they yelled.

Travis bit his lip—"what did it all mean? He had won the heat. Trumps was shut out, and there they were yelling for the old pacer!"

The Bishop was pale to the roots of his hair when he got out of the sulky.

"Great hoss! great! great!" yelled Bud as he trotted along bringing the blanket.

The old man bowed his head in the sulky-seat, a moment, amid the crash of the band and the noise of the crowd:

"Dear God—my Father—I thank Thee. Not for me—not for Ben Butler—but for life—life—for Shiloh—and Cap'n Tom. Help us—old and blind—help us! O God—"

Col. Troup grasped his hand. The Tennesseans, followers of Flecker, flocked around him. Flecker, too, was there—chagrined, maddened—he too had joined his forces with the old Bishop.

"Great Scott, old man, how you do drive! We've hedged on you—me and the Colonel—we've put up a thousand each that you'll win. We've cooked ourselves good and hard. Now drive from hell to breakfast next heat, and Travis is yo' meat! Fools that we were! We've cut each other to pieces like a pair of cats tied by the tails. Travis is at your mercy."

"Yes, sah, Flecker is right. Travis is yo' meat, sah," said the Colonel, solemnly.

The old man walked around with his lips moving silently, and a great pulsing, bursting, gripping pain in his heart—a pain which was half a hope and half despair.

The crowd was on tip-toe. Never before had such a race been paced in the Tennessee Valley. Could he take the next heat from Lizzette? If he could, he had her at his mercy.

Grimly they scored down. Travis sullen that he had to fight the old pacer, but confident of shutting him out this time. Confident and maddened. The old man, as was his wont in great emergencies, had put a bullet in his mouth to clinch his teeth on. He had learned it from Col. Jeremiah Travis, who said Jackson did it when he killed Dickinson, and at Tallapoosa, and at New Orleans.

"GO!"

And he heard Travis whirl away with a bitter curse that floated back. Then the old man shot out in the long, stealing, time-eating stride the old pacer had, and coming up just behind Lizzette's sulky he hung there in a death struggle.

One quarter, half, three-quarters, and still they swung around—locked—Travis bitter with hot oaths and the old man pale with prayer. He could see Travis's eyes flashing lightning hatred across the narrow space between them—hatred, curses, but the old man prayed on.

"The flag—now—ole hoss—for Jesus' sake!—"

He reached out in the old way, lifted his horse by sheer great force and fairly flung him ahead!—

"Flu-r-r-r!" it was Lizzette's breath as he went by her. He shot his eyes quickly sideways as she flailed the air with her forefeet within a foot of his head. Her eyes glowed, sunken,—beat—in their sockets; with mouth wide open, collapsed, frantic, in heart-broken dismay, she wabbled, staggered and quit!

"Oh, God bless you, Ben Butler!—"

But that instant in the air with her mouth wide open within a foot of the old man's head her lower teeth exposed, the old driver saw she was only four years old. Why had he noticed it? What mental telepathy in great crises cause us to see the trifles on which often the destiny of our life hangs?

Ben Butler, stubborn, flying, was shaking his game old head in a bull-dog way as he went under the wire. It maddened him to be pulled up.

"So, softly, softly old fellow! We've got 'em licked, you've got religin' in yo' heels, too. Ain't been goin' to church for ten years for nothin'!"

The old man wanted to shout, and yet he was actually shedding tears, talking hysterically and trembling all over. He heard in a dazed way the yells and thunder from the grand-stand. But he was faint and dizzy, and worst of all, as he laughed to himself and said: "Kinder sissy an' soft in spots."

Jack and Bud had Ben Butler and were gone. No wonder the grand-stand pulsed with human emotion. Never before had anything been done like this. The old, blind pacer,—the quaint old preacher—the thing they were going to shut out,—the pathos, the splendor of it all,—shook them as humanity will ever be shaken when the rejected stone comes up in the beauty of purest marble. Here it was:

4th Heat: Ben Butler, 1st; Lizzette, 2nd. Time, 2:19-1/2.

What a record it was for the old pacer! Starting barely able to save his distance, he had grown in speed and strength and now had the mare at his mercy—the two more heats he had yet to win would be a walk around for him.

Oh, it was glorious—glorious!

"Oh, by gad, sah," shouted Col. Troup, pompously. "I guess I've hedged all right. Travis will pay my thousand. He'll know how to shet out gentlemen the nex' time. Oh, by gad, sah!"

Flecker and the Tennesseans took drinks and shouted themselves hoarse.

Then the old preacher did something, but why he never could explain. It seemed intuition when he thought of it afterwards. Calling Col. Troup to him he said: "I'm kinder silly an' groggy, Col'nel, but I wish you'd go an' look in her mouth an' see how old Lizzette is."

The Colonel looked at him, puzzled.

"Why?"

"Oh, I dunno, Col'nel—but when a thing comes on me that away, maybe it's because I'm so nervous an' upsot, but somehow I seem to have a second sight when I git in this fix. I wanted you to tell me."

"What's it got to do with the race, sah! There is no bar to age. Have you any susp—"

"Oh, no—no—Col'nel, it's jes' a warnin', an intuition. I've had 'em often, it's always from God. I b'leeve it's Him tellin' me to watch, watch an' pray. I had it when Ben Butler come, thar, come in answer to prayer—"

Colonel Troup smiled and walked off. In a short while he sauntered carelessly back:

"Fo' sah, she was fo' years old this last spring."

"Thank ye, Col'nel!"

The Colonel smiled and whispered: "Oh, how cooked she is! Dead on her feet, dead. Don't drive yo' ole pacer hard—jes' walk around him, sah. Do as you please, you've earned the privilege. It's yo' walk over an' yo' money."

The fifth heat was almost a repetition of the fourth, the old pacer beating the tired mare cruelly, pacing her to a standstill. It was all over with Lizzette, anyone could see that. The judges hung out:

5th Heat: Ben Butler, 1st; Lizzette, 2nd. Time, 2:24.

Travis's face was set, set in pain and disappointment when he went to the stable. He looked away off, he saw no one. He smoked. He walked over to the stall where they were cooling Lizzette out.

"Take the full twenty minutes to cool her, Jim."

In the next stall stood Sadie B. She had been driven around by Jud Carpenter, between heats, to exercise her, he had said. She was warmed up, and ready for speed.

Travis stood watching Lizzette cool out. Jud came up and stood looking searchingly at him. There was but a glance and a nod, and Travis walked over to the grand-stand, light-hearted and even jolly, where he stood in a group of society folks.

He was met by a protest of feminine raillery: "Oh, our gloves, our candy! Oh, Mr. Travis, to get beat that way!"

He laughed: "I'll pay all you ladies lose. I was just playing with the old pacer. Bet more gloves and candy on the next heat!"

"Oh—oh," they laughed. "No—no-o! We've seen enough!"

Travis smiled and walked off. He turned at the gate and threw them back a bantering kiss.

"You'll see—" was all he said.

The old man spent the twenty minutes helping to rub off Ben Butler.

"It does me good—kinder unkeys me," he said to Bud and Jack. He put his ear to the old horses' flank—it pulsed strong and true.

Then he laughed to himself. It vexed him, for it was half hysterical and he kept saying over to himself:

"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty— All Thy works shall praise Thy name, in earth and sky and sea; Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty—"

Some one touched his arm. It was Jack: "Bishop, Bishop, time's up! We're ready. Do you hear the bell clanging?"

The Bishop nodded, dazed:

"Here, you're kinder feeble, weak an', an' sorter silly. Why, Bishop, you're recitin' poetry—" said Jack apologetically. "A man's gone when he does that—here!"

He had gone to the old man's saddle bags, and brought out his ancient flask.

"Jes' a swaller or two, Bishop," he said coaxingly, as one talking to a child—"Quick, now, you're not yo'self exactly—you've dropped into poetry."

"I guess I am a little teched, Jack, but I don't need that when I can get poetry, sech poetry as is now in me. Jack, do you want to hear the gran'est verse ever writ in poetry?"

"No—no, Bishop, don't! Jack Bracken's yo' friend, he'll freeze to you. You'll be all right soon. It's jes' a little spell. Brace up an' drop that stuff."

The old man smiled sadly as if he pitied Jack. Then he repeated slowly:

"Holy, holy, holy, all the saints adore Thee Castin' down their golden crowns around the glassy sea; Cherubim an' Seraphim, fallin' down before Thee Which wert an' art, an' ever more shall be."

Feebly he leaned on Jack, the tears ran down his cheek: "'Tain't weakness, Jack, 'tain't that—it's joy, it's love of God, Whose done so much for me. It's the glory, glory of them lines—Oh, God—what a line of poetry!"

"Castin' down their golden crowns around the glassy sea!"

Ben Butler stood ready, the bell clanged again. Jack helped him into the sulky; never had he seen the old man so feeble. Travis was already at the post.

They got the word immediately, but to the old man's dismay, Travis's mare shot away like a scared doe, trotting as frictionless as a glazed emery wheel.

The old man shook up Ben Butler and wondered why he seemed to stand so still. The old horse did his best, he paced as he never had before, but the flying thing like a red demon flitted always just before him, a thing with tendons of steel and feet of fire.

"Oh, God, Ben Butler, what is it—what? Have you quit on me, ole hoss?—you, Ben Butler, you that come in answer to prayer? My God, Cap'n Tom, Shiloh!"

And still before him flew the red thing with wings.

At the half, at the three-quarters: "Now ole hoss!" And the old horse responded gamely, grandly. He thundered like a cyclone bursting through a river-bed. Foot by foot, inch by inch, he came up to Travis's mare. Nose to nose they flew along. There was a savage yell—a loud cracking of Travis' whip in the blind horse's ears. Never had the sightless old horse had such a fright! He could not see—he could only hear the terrible, savage yell. Frightened, he forgot, he dodged, he wavered—

"Steady, Ben Butler, don't—oh—"

It was a small trick of Travis', for though the old pacer came with a rush that swept everything before it, the drive had been made too late. Travis had the heat won already.

Still there was no rule against it. He could yell and crack his whip and make all the noise he wished, and if the other horse was frightened, it was the fault of his nerves. Everybody who knew anything of racing knew that.

A perfect tornado of hisses met Travis at the grand-stand.

But he had won the heat! What did he care? He could scarcely stop his mare. She seemed like a bird and as fresh. He pulled her double to make her turn and come back after winning, and as she came she still fought the bit.

As he turned, he almost ran into the old pacer jogging, broken-hearted behind. The mare's mouth was wide open, and the Bishop's trained eye fell on the long tusk-like lower teeth, flashing in the sun.

Startled, he quivered from head to foot. He would not believe his own eyes. He looked closely again. There was no doubt of it—she was eight years old!

In an instant he knew—his heart sank, "We're robbed, Cap'n Tom—Shiloh—my God!"

Travis drove smilingly back, amid hisses and cheers and the fluttering of ladies' handkerchiefs in the boxes.

"How about the gloves and candy now?" he called to them with his cap in his hand.

Above the judges had hung out:

6th Heat: Lizzette, 1st; Ben Butler, 2nd. Time, 2:14.

When Flecker of Tennessee saw the time hung out, he jumped from his seat exclaiming: "Six heats and the last heat the fastest? Who ever heard of a tired mare cutting ten seconds off that way? By the eternal, but something's wrong there."

"Six heats an' the last one the fastest—By gad, sah," said Col. Troup. "It is strange. That mare Lizzette is a wonder, an' by gad, sah, didn't the old pacer come? By gad, but if he'd begun that drive jus' fifty yards sooner—our money"—

Flecker groaned: "We're gone, Colonel—one thousand we put up and the one we hedged with."

"By gad, sah, but, Flecker, don't you think Lizzette went smoother that last heat? She had a different stride, a different gait."

Flecker had not noticed it. "But it was a small thing," he said—"to frighten the old horse. No rule against it, but a gentleman—"

The Colonel smiled: "Damn such gentlemen, sah. They're a new breed to me."

The old man went slowly back to the stable. He said nothing. He walked dazed, pale, trembling, heart-broken. But never before had he thought so keenly.

Should he expose Travis?—Ruin him, ruin him—here? Then there passed quickly thoughts of Cap'n Tom—of Miss Alice. What a chance to straighten every thing out, right every wrong—to act for Justice, Justice long betrayed—for God. For God? And had not, perhaps, God given him this opportunity for this very purpose? Was not God,—God, the ever merciful but ever just, behind it all? Was it not He who caused him to look at the open mouth of the first mare? Was it not He giving him a chance to right a wrong so long, so long delayed? If he failed to speak out would he not be doing every man in the race a wrong, and Cap'n Tom and Shiloh, and even Miss Alice, so soon to marry this man—how it went through him!—even God—even God a wrong!

He trembled; he could not walk. He sat down; Jack and Bud had the horse, the outlaw's eyes flashing fire as he led him away. But Bud, poor Bud, he was following, broken-hearted, blubbering and still saying between his sobs: "Great—hoss—he skeered him!"

The grand-stand sat stupefied, charged to the explosive point with suppressed excitement. Six terrible heats and no horse had won three. But now Lizzette and Ben Butler had two each—who would win the next, the decisive heat. God help the old preacher, for he had no chance. Not after the speed that mare showed.

Colonel Troup came up: "By gad, sah, Bishop—don't give up—you've got one mo' chance. Be as game as the ole hoss."

"We are game, sir—but—but, will you do as I tell you an' swear to me on yo' honor as a gentleman never to speak till I say the word? Will you swear to keep sacred what I show you, until I let you tell?"

The Colonel turned red: "What do you mean, sah?"

"Swear it, swear it, on yo' honor as a gentleman—"

"On my honor as a gentleman, sah? I swear it."

"Go," said the old man quickly, "an' look in the mouth of the mare they are jes' bringin' in—the mare that won that heat. Go, an' remember yo' honor pledged. Go an' don't excite suspicion."

The old man sat down and, as he waited, he thought. Never before had he thought so hard. Never had such a burden been put upon him. When he looked up Colonel Troup stood pale and silent before him—pale with close-drawn lips and a hot, fierce, fighting gleam in his eyes.

"You've explained it, sah—" he said. Then he fumbled his pistol in his pocket. "Now—now, give me back my promise, my word. I have two thousand dollars at stake, and—and clean sport, sah,—clean sport. Give me back my word."

"Sit down," said the old man quietly.

The Colonel sat down so still that it was painful. He was calm but the Bishop saw how hard the fight was.

Then the old man broke out: "I can't—O God, I can't! I can't make a character, why should I take one? It's so easy to take a word—a nod—it is gone! And if left maybe it 'ud come agin. Richard Travis—it looks bad—he may be bad—but think what he may do yet—if God but touch him? No man's so bad but that God can't touch him—change him. We may live to see him do grand and noble things—an' God will touch him," said the old man hotly, "he will yet."

"If you are through with me," said Colonel Troup, coolly, "and will give me back my promise, I'll go and touch him—yes, damn him, I'll shoot him as he should be."

"But I ain't gwine to give it back," smiled the old man.

Colonel Troup flushed: "What'll you do, then? Let him rob you an' me, sah? Steal my two thousand, and Flecker's? Your purse that you've already won—yours—yours, right this minute? Rob the public in a fake race, sah? You've won the purse, it is yours, sah. He forfeited it when he brought out that other mare. Think what you are doing, sah!"

"Cap'n Tom an' Shiloh, too"—winced the old man. "But I forgot—you don't kno'—yes"—and he smiled triumphantly. "Yes, Col'nel, I'll let him do all that if—if God'll let it be. But God won't let it be!"

Colonel Troup arose disgusted—hot. "What do you mean, old man. Are you crazy, sah? Give me back my word—"

"Wait—no—no," said the Bishop. "Col'nel, you're a man of yo' word—wait!"

And he arose and was gone.

The Colonel swore soundly. He walked around and damned everything in sight. He fumbled his pistol in his pocket, and wondered how he could break his word and yet keep it.

There was no way, and he went off to take a drink.

Bud, the tears running down his cheeks—was rubbing Ben Butler down, and saying: "Great hoss—great hoss!"

Of all, he and the Bishop had not given up.

"I'm afeard we'll have to give it up, Bishop," said Jack.

"Me, me give it up, Jack? Me an' Ben Butler quit like yeller dogs? Why, we're jes' beginnin' to fight—with God's help."

Then he thought a moment: "Fetch me some cotton."

He took it and carefully packed it in the old horse's ears.

"It was a small trick, that yellin' and frightening the ole hoss," said Jack.

"Ben Butler," said the old man, as he stepped back and looked at the horse, "Ben Butler, I've got you now where God's got me—you can't see an' you can't hear. You've got to go by faith, by the lines of faith. But I'll be guidin' 'em, ole hoss, as God guides me—by faith."

The audience sat numbed and nerveless when they scored for the last heat. The old pacer's gallant fight had won them all—and now—now after winning two heats, with only one more to win—now to lose at last. For he could not win—not over a mare as fresh and full of speed as that mare now seemed to be. And she, too, had but one heat to win.

But Col. Troup had been thinking and he stopped the old man as he drove out on the track.

"Been thinkin', parson, 'bout that promise, an' I'll strike a bargain with you, sah. You say God ain't goin' to let him win this heat an' race an' so forth, sah."

The Bishop smiled: "I ain't give up, Col'nel—not yet."

"Well, sah, if God does let Travis win, I take it from yo' reasoning, sah, that he's a sorry sort of a God to stand in with a fraud an' I'll have nothin' to do with Him. I'll tell all about it."

"If that's the way you think—yes," said the old man, solemnly—"yes—tell it—but God will never stan' in with fraud."

"We'll see," said the Colonel. "I'll keep my word if—if—you win!"

Off they went as before, the old pacer hugging the mare's sulky wheels like a demon. Even Travis had time to notice that the old man had done something to steady the pacer, for how like a steadied ship did he fly along!

Driving, driving, driving—they flew—they fought it out. Not a muscle moved in the old man's body. Like a marble statue he sat and drove. Only his lips kept moving as if talking to his horse, so close that Travis heard him: "It's God's way, Ben Butler, God's way—faith,—the lines of faith—'He leadeth me—He leadeth me'!"

Up—up—came the pacer fearless with frictionless gait, pacing like a wild mustang-king of the desert, gleaming in sweat, white covered with dust, rolling like a cloud of fire. The old man sang soft and low:

"He leadeth me, O blessed thought, O word with heavenly comfort fraught, Whate'er I do, whate'er I be, Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me."

Inch by inch he came up. And now the home stretch, and the old pacer well up, collaring the flying mare and pacing her neck to neck.

Travis smiled hard and cruel as he drew out his whip and circling it around his head, uttered again, amid fierce crackling, his Indian yell: "Hi—hi—there—ho—ha—ho—hi—hi—e—e!"

But the old pacer swerved not a line, and Travis, white and frightened now with a terrible, bitter fear that tightened around his heart and flashed in his eyes like the first swift crackle of lightning before the blow of thunder, brought his whip down on his own mare, welting her from withers to rump in a last desperate chance.

Gamely she responded and forged ahead—the old pacer was beaten!

They thundered along, Travis whipping his mare at every stride. She stood it like the standard-bred she was, and never winced, then she forged ahead farther, and farther, and held the old pacer anchored at her wheels, and the wire not fifty feet away!

There was nothing left for the old man to do—with tears streaming down his cheeks he shouted—"Ben Butler, Ben Butler—it's God's way—the chastening rod—" and his whip fell like a blade of fire on the old horse's flank.

It stung him to madness. The Bishop striking him, the old man he loved, and who never struck! He shook his great ugly head like a maddened bull and sprang savagely at the wire, where the silken thing flaunted in his face in a burst of speed that left all behind. Nor could the old man stop him after he shot past it, for his flank fluttered like a cyclone of fire and presently he went down on his knees—gently, gently, then—he rolled over!

His driver jumped to the ground. It was all he knew except he heard Bud weeping as he knelt on the ground where the old horse lay, and saying: "Great hoss—great hoss!"

Then he remembered saying: "Now, Bud, don't cry—if he does die, won't it be glorious, to die in harness, giving his life for others—Cap'n Tom—Shiloh? Think of it, Bud, to die at the wire, his race won, his work finished, the crown his! O Bud, who would not love to go like Ben Butler?"

But he could not talk any more, for he saw Jack Bracken spring forward, and then the gleam of a whiskey flask gleamed above Ben Butler's fluttering nostrils and Jack's terrible gruff voice said: "Wait till he's dead fust. Stand back, give him air," and his great hat fluttered like a windmill as he fanned the gasping nostrils of the struggling horse.

The old man turned with an hysterical sob in his throat that was half a shout of joy.

Travis stood by him watching the struggles of the old horse for breath.

"Well, I've killed him," he said, laconically.

There was a grip like a vise on his shoulders. He turned and looked into the eyes of the old man and saw a tragic light there he had never seen before.

"Don't—for God's sake don't, Richard Travis, don't tempt me here, wait till I pray, till this devil goes out of my heart."

And then in his terrible, steel-gripping way, he pulled Richard Travis, with a sudden jerk up against his own pulsing heart, as if the owner of The Gaffs had been a child, burying his great hardened fingers in the man's arm and fairly hissing in a whisper these words: "If he dies—Richard Travis—remember he died for you ... it tuck both yo' mares to kill him—no—no—don't start—don't turn pale ... you are safe ... I made Col'nel Troup give me his word ... he'd not expose you ... if Ben Butler won an' he saved his money. I knew what it 'ud mean ... that last heat ... that it 'ud kill him ... but I drove it to save you ... to keep Troup from exposin' yo' ... I've got his word. An' then I was sure ... as I live, I knew that God will touch you yet ... an' his touch will be as quickening fire to the dead honor that is in you.... Go! Richard Travis.... Go ... don't tempt me agin...."

He remembered later feeling very queer because he held so much gold in a bag, and it was his. Then he became painfully acute to the funny thing that happened, so funny that he had to sit down and laugh. It was on seeing Ben Butler rising slowly to his feet and shaking himself with that long powerful shake he had seen so often after wallowing. And the funniest thing!—two balls of cotton flew out of his ears, one hitting Flecker of Tennessee on the nose, the other Colonel Troup in the eye.

"By Gad, sah," drawled Colonel Troup, "but now, I see. I thought he cudn't ah been made of flesh an' blood, sah, why damme he's made of cotton! An' you saved my money, old man, an' that damned rascal's name by that trick? Well, you kno' what I said, sah, a gentleman an' his word—but—but—" he turned quickly on the old man—excitedly, "ah, here—I'll give you the thousand dollars I hedged now ... if you'll give me back my promise—damned if I don't! Won't do it? No? Well, it's yo' privilege. I admire yo' charity, it's not of this world."

And then he remembered seeing Bud sitting in the old cart driving Ben Butler home and telling everybody what they now knew: "Great hoss—G-r-e-a-t hoss!"

And the old horse shuffled and crow-hopped along, and Jack followed the Bishop carrying the gold.

And then such a funny thing: Ben Butler, frightened at a mule braying in his ear, ran away and threw Bud out!

When the old man heard it he sat down and laughed and cried—to his own disgust—"like a fool, sissy man," he said, "a sissy man that ain't got no nerve. But, Lord, who'd done that but Ben Butler?"



CHAPTER XXVII

YOU'LL COME BACK A MAN

It was after dark when the old man, pale, and his knees still shaking with the terrible strain and excitement of it all, reached his cabin on the mountain. The cheers of the grand-stand still echoed in his ears, and, shut his eyes as he would, he still saw Ben Butler, stretched out on the track struggling for the little breath that was in him.

Jack Bracken walked in behind the old man carrying a silken sack which sagged and looked heavy.

The grandfather caught up Shiloh first and kissed her. Then he sat down with the frail form in his arms and looked earnestly at her with his deep piercing eyes.

"Where's the ole hoss," began his wife, her eyes beginning to snap. "You've traded him off an' I'll bet you got soaked, Hillard Watts—I can tell it by that pesky, sheepish look in yo' eyes. You never cu'd trade horses an' I've allers warned you not to trade the ole roan."

"Wal, yes," said the Bishop. "I've traded him for this—" and his voice grew husky with emotion—"for this, Tabitha, an', Jack, jes' pour it out on the table there."

It came out, yellow waves of gold. The light shone on them, and as the tired eyes of little Shiloh peeped curiously at them, each one seemed to throw to her a kiss of hope, golden tipped and resplendent.

The old woman stood dazed, and gazing sillily. Then she took up one of the coins and bit it gingerly.

"In God's name, Hillard Watts, what does all this mean? Why, it's genuwine gold."

"It means," said the old man cheerily, "that Shiloh an' the chillun will never go into that mill ag'in—that old Ben Butler has give 'em back their childhood an' a chance to live. It means," he said triumphantly, "that Cap'n Tom's gwinter have the chance he's been entitled to all these years—an' that means that God'll begin to unravel the tangle that man in his meanness has wound up. It means, Tabitha, that you'll not have to wuck anymo' yo'self—no mo', as long as you live—"

The old woman clutched at the bed-post: "Me?—not wuck anymo'? Not hunt 'sang an' spatterdock an' clean up an' wash an' scour an' cook an'—"

"No, why not, Tabitha? We've got a plenty to—"

He saw her clutch again at the bed-post and go down in a heap, saying:—

"Lemme die—now, if I can't wuck no mo'."

They lifted her on the bed and bathed her face. It was ten minutes before she came around and said feebly:

"I'm dyin', Hillard, it's kilt me to think I'll not have to wuck any mo'."

"Oh, no, Tabitha, I wouldn't die fur that," he said soothingly. "It's terrible suddent like, I kno', an' hard fur you to stan', but try to bear it, honey, fur our sakes. It's hard to be stricken suddent like with riches, an' I've never seed a patient get over it, it is true. You'll be wantin' to change our cabin into an ole Colonial home, honey, an' have a carriage an' a pair of roached mules, an' a wantin' me to start a cotton factory an' jine a whis'-club, whilst you entertain the Cottontown Pettico't Club with high-noon teas, an' cut up a lot o' didoes that'll make the res' of the town laugh. But you mus' fight ag'in it, Tabitha, honey. We'll jes' try to live as we've allers lived an' not spend our money so as to have people talk about how we're throwin' it at the ducks. You can get up befo' day as usual an' hunt 'sang on the mountain side, and do all the other things you've l'arnt to do befo' breakfast."

This was most reassuring, and the old woman felt much better. But the next morning she complained bitterly:

"I tested ever' one o' them yaller coins las' night, they mout a put a counterfeit in the lot, an' see heah, Hillard—" she grinned showing her teeth—"I wore my teeth to the quick a testin' 'em!"

The next week, as the train took the Bishop away, he stood on the rear platform to cry good-bye to Shiloh and Jack Bracken who were down to see him off. By his side was a stooped figure and as the old man jingled some gold in his pocket he said, patting the figure on the back:

"You'll come back a man, Cap'n Tom—thank God! a man ag'in!"



PART FIFTH.—THE LOOM



CHAPTER I

A NEW MILL GIRL

The autumn had deepened—the cotton had been picked. The dry stalks, sentinelling the seared ground, waved their tattered remnants of unpicked bolls to and fro—summer's battle flags which had not yet fallen.

Millwood was astir early that morning—what there was of it. One by one the lean hounds had arisen from their beds of dry leaves under the beeches, and, shaking themselves with that hound-shake which began at their noses and ended in a circular twist of their skeleton tails, had begun to hunt for stray eggs and garbage. Yet their master was already up and astir.

He came out and took a long drink from the jug behind the door. He drank from the jug's mouth, and the gurgling echo sounded down the empty hall: Guggle—guggle—gone! Guggle—guggle—gone! It said to Edward Conway as plainly as if it had a voice.

"Yes, you've gone—that's the last of you. Everything is gone," he said.

He sat down on his favorite chair, propped his feet upon the rotten balcony's rim and began to smoke.

Within, he heard Lily sobbing. Helen was trying to comfort her.

Conway glanced into the room. The oldest sister was dressed in a plain blue cotton gown—for to-day she would begin work at the mill. Conway remembered it. He winced, but smoked on and said nothing.

"'Tain't no use—'tain't no use," sobbed the little one—"My mammy's gone—gone!"

Such indeed was the fact. Mammy Maria had gone. All that any of them knew was that only an hour before another black mammy had come to serve them, and all she would say was that she had come to take Mammy Maria's place—gone, and she knew not where.

Conway winced again and then swore under his breath. At first he had not believed it, none of them had. But as the morning went on and Mammy Maria failed to appear, he accepted it, saying: "Jus' like a niggah—who ever heard of any of them havin' any gratitude!"

Helen was too deeply numbed by the thought of the mill to appreciate fully her new sorrow. All she knew—all she seemed to feel—was, that go to the mill she must—go—go—and Lily might cry and the world might go utterly to ruin—as her own life was going:

"I want my mammy—I want my mammy," sobbed the little one.

Then the mother instinct of Helen—that latent motherhood which is in every one of her sex, however young—however old—asserted itself for the first time.

She soothed the younger child: "Never mind, Lily, I am going to the mill only to learn my lesson this week—next week you shall go with me. We will not be separated after that."

"I want my mammy—oh, I want my mammy," was all Lily could say.

Breakfast was soon over and then the hour came—the hour when Helen Conway would begin her new life. This thought—and this only—burned into her soul: To-day her disgrace began. She was no longer a Conway. The very barriers of her birth, that which had been thrown around her to distinguish her from the common people, had been broken down. The foundation of her faith was shattered with it.

For the last time, as a Conway, she looked at the fields of Millwood—at the grim peak of Sunset Rock above—the shadowed wood below. Until then she did not know it made such a difference in the way she looked at things. But now she saw it and with it the ruin, the abandonment of every hope, every ambition of her life. As she stood upon the old porch before starting for the mill, she felt that she was without a creed and without a principle.

"I would do anything," she cried bitterly—"I care for nothing. If I am tempted I shall steal, I know I shall—I know I shall"—she repeated.

It is a dangerous thing to change environments for the worse. It is more dangerous still to break down the moral barrier, however frail it may be, which our conscience has built between the good and the evil in us. Some, reared under laws that are loose, may withstand this barrier breaking and be no worse for the change; but in the case of those with whom this barrier of their moral belief stands securely between conscience and forbidden paths, let it fall, and all the best of them will fall with it.

For with them there are no degrees in degradation—no caste in the world of sin. Headlong they rush to moral ruin. And there are those like Helen Conway, too blinded by the environment of birth to know that work is not degradation. To them it is the lowering of every standard of their lives, standards which idleness has erected. And idleness builds strange standards.

If it had occurred to Helen Conway—if she had been reared to know that to work honestly for an honest living was the noblest thing in life, how different would it all have been!

And so at last what is right and what is wrong depend more upon what has gone before than what follows after. It is more a question of pedigree and environment than of trials and temptations.

"I shall steal," she repeated—"oh, I know I shall."

And yet, as her father drove her in the old shambling buggy across the hill road to the town, there stood out in her mind one other picture which lingered there all day and for many days. She could not forget it nor cast it from her, and in spite of all her sorrow it uplifted her as she had been uplifted at times before when, reading the country newspaper, there had blossomed among its dry pages the perfume of a stray poem, whose incense entered into her soul of souls.

It was a young man in his shirt sleeves, his face flushed with work, his throat bare, plowing on the slope of the hillside for the fall sowing of wheat.

What a splendid picture he was, silhouetted in the rising sun against the pink and purple background of sunbeams!

It was Clay Westmore, and he waved his hand in his slow, calm forceful way as he saw her go by.

It was a little thing, but it comforted her. She remembered it long.

The mill had been running several hours when Kingsley looked up, and saw standing before him at his office window a girl of such stately beauty that he stood looking sillily at her, and wondering.

He did not remember very clearly afterwards anything except this first impression; that her hair was plaited in two rich coils upon her head, and that never before had he seen so much beauty in a gingham dress.

He remembered, too, that her eyes, which held him spellbound, wore more an expression of despair and even desperation than of youthful hope. He could not understand why they looked that way, forerunners as they were of such a face and hair.

And so he stood, sillily smiling, until Richard Travis arose from his desk and came forward to meet her.

She nodded at him and tried to smile, but Kingsley noticed that it died away into drawn, hard lines around her pretty mouth.

"It is Miss Conway," he said to Kingsley, taking her hand familiarly and holding it until she withdrew it with a conscious touch of embarrassment.

"She is one of my neighbors, and, by the way, Kingsley, she must have the best place in the mill."

Kingsley continued to look sillily at her. He had not heard of Helen—he did not understand.

"A place in the mill—ah, let me see," he said thoughtfully.

"I've been thinking it out," went on Travis, "and there is a drawing-in machine ready for her. I understand Maggie is going to quit on account of her health."

"I, ah—" began Kingsley—"Er—well, I never heard of a beginner starting on a drawing-in machine."

"I have instructed Maggie to teach her," said Travis shortly. Then he beckoned to Helen: "Come."

She followed Richard Travis through the mill. He watched her as she stepped in among the common herd of people—the way at first in which she threw up her head in splendid scorn. Never had he seen her so beautiful. Never had he desired to own her so much as then.

"The exquisite, grand thing," he muttered. "And I shall—she shall be mine."

Then her head sank again with a little crushed smile of helpless pity and resignation. It touched even Travis, and he said, consolingly, to her:

"You are too beautiful to have to do this and you shall not—for long. You were born to be queen of—well, The Gaffs, eh?"

He laughed and then he touched boldly her hair which lay splendidly around her temples.

She looked at him resignedly, then she flushed to her eyes and followed him.

The drawer-in is to the loom what the architect is to the building. And more—it is both architect and foundation, for as the threads are drawn in so must the cloth be.

The work is tedious and requires skill, patience, quickness, and that nicety of judgment which comes with intellect of a higher order than is commonly found in the mill. For that reason the drawer-in is removed from the noise of the main room—she sits with another drawer-in in a quiet, little room nearby, and, with her trained fingers, she draws in through the eyelets the threads, which set the warp.

Maggie was busy, but she greeted him with a quaint, friendly little smile. Helen noticed two things about her at once: that there was a queer bright light in her eyes, and that beneath them glowed two bright red spots, which, when Travis approached, deepened quickly.

"Yes, I am going to leave the mill," she said, after Travis had left them together. "I jus' can't stan' it any longer. Mother is dead, you know, an' father is an invalid. I've five little brothers and sisters at home. I couldn't bear to see them die in here. It's awful on children, you know. So I've managed to keep 'em a-goin' until—well—I've saved enough an' with the help of—a—a—friend—you see—a very near friend—I've managed to get us a little farm. We're all goin' to it next week. Oh, yes, of course, I'll be glad to teach you."

She glanced at Helen's hands and smiled: "Yo' hands don't look like they're used to work. They're so white and beautiful."

Helen was pleased. Her fingers were tapering and beautiful, and she knew her hands were the hands of many generations of ladies.

"I have to make a living for myself now," she said with a dash of bitterness.

"If I looked like you," said Maggie, slyly and yet frankly, "I'd do something in keeping with my place. I can't bear to think of anybody like you bein' here."

Helen was silent and Maggie saw that the tears were ready to start. She saw her half sob and she patted her cheek in a motherly way as she said:

"Oh, but I didn't mean to hurt you so. Only I do hate so to see—oh, I am silly, I suppose, because I am going to get out of this terrible, terrible grind."

Her pale face flushed and she coughed, as she bent over her work to show Helen how to draw in the threads.

"Now, I'm a good drawer-in, an' he said onct"—she nodded at the door from which Travis had gone out—"that I was the best in the worl'; the whole worl'." She blushed slightly. "But, well—I've made no fortune yet—an' somehow, in yo' case now—you see—somehow I feel sorter 'fraid—about you—like somethin' awful was goin' to happen to you."

"Why—what—" began Helen, surprised.

"Oh, it ain't nothin'," she said trying to be cheerful—"I'll soon get over this ... out in the air. I'm weak now and I think it makes me nervous an' skeery.... I'll throw it off that quick," she snapped her fingers—"out in the open air again—out on the little farm." She was silent, as if trying to turn the subject, but she went back to it again. "You don't know how I've longed for this—to get away from the mill. It's day in an' day out here an' shut up like a convict. It ain't natural—it can't be—it ain't nature. If anybody thinks it is, let 'em look at them little things over on the other side," and she nodded toward the main room. "Why, them little tots work twelve hours a day an' sometimes mo'. Who ever heard of children workin' at all befo' these things come into the country? Now, I've no objection to 'em, only that they ought to work grown folks an' not children. They may kill me if they can," she laughed,—"I am grown, an' can stan' it, but I can't bear to think of 'em killin' my little brothers an' sisters—they're entitled to live until they get grown anyway."

She stopped to cough and to show Helen how to untangle some threads.

"Oh, but they can't hurt me," she laughed, as if ashamed of her cough; "this is bothersome, but it won't last long after I get out on the little farm."

She stopped talking and fell to her work, and for two hours she showed Helen just how to draw the threads through, to shift the machine, to untangle the tangled threads.

It was nearly time to go home when Travis came to see how Helen was progressing. He came up behind the two girls and stood looking at them work. When they looked up Maggie started and reddened and Helen saw her tighten her thin lips in a peculiar way while the blood flew from them, leaving a thin white oval ring in the red that flushed her face.

"You are doing finely," he said to Helen—"you will make a swift drawer-in." He stooped over and whispered: "Such fingers and hands would draw in anything—even hearts."

Helen blushed and looked quickly at Maggie, over whose face the pinched look had come again, but Maggie was busy at her machine.

"I remember when I came here five years ago," went on Maggie after Travis had left, "I was so proud an' happy. I was healthy an' well an' so happy to think I cu'd make a livin' for the home-folks—for daddy an' the little ones. Oh, they would put them in the mill, but I said no, I'll work my fingers off first. Let 'em play an' grow. Yes, they've lived on what I have made for five years—daddy down on his back, too, an' the children jus' growin', an' now they are big enough and strong enough to he'p me run the little farm—instead"—she said after a pause—"instead of bein' dead an' buried, killed in the mill. That was five years ago—five years"—she coughed and looked out of the window reflectively.

"Daddy—poor daddy—he couldn't help the tree fallin' on his back an' cripplin' him; an' little Buddy, well, he was born weakly, so I done it all. Oh, I am not braggin' an' I ain't complainin', I'm so proud to do it."

Helen was silent, her own bitterness softened by the story Maggie was telling, and for a while she forgot herself and her sorrow.

It is so always. When we would weep we have only to look around and see others who would wail.

"When I come I was as rosy as you," Maggie went on; "not so pretty now, mind you—nobody could be as pretty as you."

She said it simply, but it touched Helen.

"But I'll get my color back on the little farm—I'll be well again." She was silent a while. "I kno' you are wonderin' how I saved and got it." Helen saw her face sparkle and the spots deepen. "Mr. Travis has been so kind to me in—in other ways—but that's a big secret," she laughed, "I'm to tell you some day, or rather you'll see yo'self, an' then, oh—every thing will be all right an' I'll be ever so much happier than I am now."

She jumped up impulsively and stood before Helen.

"Mightn't I kiss you once,—you're so pretty an' fresh?" And she kissed the pretty girl half timidly on the cheek.

"It makes me so happy to think of it," she went on excitedly, "to think of owning a little farm all by ourselves, to go out into the air every day whenever you feel like it and not have to work in the mill, nor ask anybody if you may, but jus' go out an' see things grow—an' hear the birds sing and set under the pretty green trees an' gather wild flowers if you want to. To keep house an' to clean up an' cook instead of forever drawin'-in, an' to have a real flower garden of yo' own—yo' very own."

They worked for hours, Maggie talking as a child who had found at last a sympathetic listener. Twilight came and then a clang of bells and the shaft above them began to turn slower and slower. Helen looked up wondering why it had all stopped so suddenly. She met the eyes of Travis looking at her.

"I am to take you home," he said to her, "the trotters are at the door. Oh," as he looked at her work—"why, you have done first rate for the day."

"It's Maggie's," she whispered.

He had not seen Maggie and he stood looking at Helen with such passionate, patronizing, commanding, masterful eyes, that she shrank for a moment, sideways.

Then he laughed: "How beautiful you are! There are queens born and queens made—I shall call you the queen of the mill, eh?"

He reached out and tried to take her hand, but she shrank behind the machine and then—

"Oh, Maggie!" she exclaimed—for the girl's face was now white and she stood with a strained mouth as if ready to sob.

"Oh, Maggie's a good little girl," said Travis, catching her hand.

"Oh, please don't—please"—said Maggie.

Then she walked out, drawing her thin shawl around her.



CHAPTER II

IN THE DEPTHS

All the week the two girls worked together at the mill; a week which was to Helen one long nightmare, filled, as it was, with the hum and roar of machinery, the hot breath of the mill, and worst of all, the seared and deadening thought that she was disgraced.

In the morning she entered the mill hoping it might fall on and destroy her. At night she went home to a drunken father and a little sister who needed, in her childish sorrow, all the pity and care of the elder one.

And one night her father, being more brutal than ever, had called out as Helen came in: "Come in, my mill-girl!"

Richard Travis always drove her home, and each night he became more familiar and more masterful. She felt,—she knew—that she was falling under his fascinating influence.

And worse than all, she knew she did not care.

There is a depth deeper even than the sin—the depth where the doer ceases to care.

Indeed, she was beginning to make herself believe that she loved him—as he said he wished her to do—and as he loved her, he said; and with what he said and what he hinted she dreamed beautiful, desperate dreams of the future.

She did not wonder, then, that on one drive she had permitted him to hold her hand in his. What a strong hand it was, and how could so weak a hand as her's resist it? And all the time he had talked so beautifully and had quoted Browning and Keats. And finally he had told her that she had only to say the word, and leave the mill with him forever.

But where, she did not even care—only to get away from the mill, from her disgrace, from her drunken father, from her wretched life.

And another night, when he had helped her out of the buggy, and while she was close to him and looking downward, he had bent over her and kissed her on the neck, where her hair had been gathered up and had left it white and fair and unprotected. And it sent a hot flame of shame to the depths of her brain, but she could only look up and say—"Oh, please don't—please don't, Mr. Travis," and then dart quickly into the old gate and run to her home.

But within it was only to meet the taunts and sneers of her father that brought again the hot Conway blood in defying anger to her face, and then she had turned and rushed back to the gate which Travis had just left, crying:

"Take me now—anywhere—anywhere. Carry me away from here."

But she heard only the sound of his trotters' feet up the road, and overcome with the reflective anguish of it all, she had tottered and dropped beneath the tree upon the grass—dropped to weep.

After a while she sat up, and going down the long path to the old spring, she bathed her face and hands in its cool depths. Then she sat upon a rock which jutted out into the water. It calmed her to sit there and feel the rush of the air from below, upon her hot cheeks and her swollen eyes.

The moon shone brightly, lighting up the water, the rocks which held the spring pool within their fortress of gray, and the long green path of water-cresses, stretching away and showing where the spring branch ran to the pasture.

Glancing down, she saw her own image in the water, and she smiled to see how beautiful it was. There was her hair hanging splendidly down her back, and in the mirror of water beneath she saw it was tinged with that divine color which had set the Roman world afire in Cleopatra's days. But then, there was her dress—her mill dress.

She sighed—she looked up at the stars. They always filled her with great waves of wonder and reverence.

"Is mother in one of you?" she asked. "Oh, mother, why were you taken from your two little girls? and if the dead are immortal, can they forget us of earth? Can they be indifferent to our fate? How could they be happy if they knew—" She stopped and looking up, picked out a single star that shone brighter than the others, clinging so close to the top of Sunset Rock as to appear a setting to his crown.

"I will imagine she is there"—she whispered—"in that world—O mother—mother—will you—cannot you help me?"

She was weeping and had to bathe her face again. Then another impulse seized her—an impulse of childhood. Pulling off her stockings, she dipped her feet in the cool water and splashed them around in sheer delight.

The moonbeams falling on them under the water turned the pink into white, and she smiled to see how like the pictures of Diana her ankles looked.

She had forgotten that the old spring was near the public road and that the rail fence was old and fallen. Her revery was interrupted by a bantering, half drunken, jolly laugh:

"Well, I must say I never saw anything quite so pretty!"

She sprang up in shame. Leaning on the old fence, she saw Harry Travis, a roguish smile on his face. She thought she would run, then she remembered her bare feet and she sat down on the grass, covering her ankles with her skirt. At first she wanted to cry, then she grew indignant as he came tipsily toward her and sat down by her side.

She was used to the smell of whiskey on the breath. Its slightest odor she knew instantly. To her it was the smell of death.

"Got to the Gov'nor's private bottle to-night," he said familiarly, "and took a couple of cocktails. Going over to see Nellie, but couldn't resist such beauties as"—he pointed to her feet.

"It was mean of you to slip upon me as you did," she said. Then she turned the scorn of her eyes on him and coolly looked him over, the weak face, the boyish, half funny smile, the cynical eyes,—trying to be a man of the world and too weak to know what it all meant.

The Conway spirit had come to her—it always did in a critical moment. She no longer blushed or even feared him.

"How, how," she said slowly and looking him steadily over, "did I ever love such a thing as you?"

He moved up closer. "You will have to kiss me for that," he said angrily. "I've kissed you so often I know just how to do it," and he made an attempt to throw his arms around her.

She sprang away from him into the spring branch, standing knee deep in the water and among the water-cresses.

He arose hot with insolence: "Oh, you think you are too good for me now—now that the Gov'nor has set his heart on you. Damn him—you were mine before you were his. He may have you, but he will take you with Cassius' kisses on your lips."

He sprang forward, reached over the rock and seized her by the arm. But she jerked away from him and sprang back into the deeper water of the spring. She did not scream, but it seemed that her heart would burst with shame and anger. She thought of Ophelia, and as she looked down into the water she wiped away indifferently and silently the cool drops which had splashed up into her face, and she wondered if she might not be able to drop down flat and drown herself there, and thus end it all.

He had come to the edge of the rock and stood leering drunkenly down on her.

"I love you," he laughed ironically.

"I hate you," she said, looking up steadily into his eyes and moving back out of his reach.

The water had wet her dress, and she stooped and dipped some of it up and bathed her hot cheeks.

"I'll kiss you if I have to wade into that spring."

"If I had a brother,—oh, if I even had a father," she said, looking at him with a flash of Conway fire in her eyes—"and you did—you would not live till morning—you know you wouldn't."

She stood now knee-deep in water. Above her the half-drunken boy, standing on the rock which projected into the spring, emboldened with drink and maddened by the thought that she had so easily given him up, had reached out and seized her around the neck. He was rough, and it choked her as he drew her to him.

She screamed for the first time—for she thought she heard hoof beats coming down the road; then she heard a horseman clear the low fence and spur into the spring branch. The water from the horse's feet splashed over her. She remembered it only faintly—the big glasses—the old straw hat,—the leathern bag of samples around his shoulders.

"Most unusual," she heard him say, with more calmness it seemed to Helen than ever: "Quite unusual—insultingly so!"

Instinctively she held up her arms and he stooped in the saddle and lifted her up and set her on the stone curbing on the side farthest from Harry Travis.

Then he turned and very deliberately reached over and seized Harry Travis, who stood on the rock, nearly on a line with the pommel of the saddle. But the hand that gripped the back of Harry's neck was anything but gentle. It closed around the neck at the base of the brain, burying its fingers in the back muscles with paralyzing pain and jerked him face downward across the saddle with a motion so swift that he was there before he knew it. Then another hand seized him and rammed his mouth, as he lay across the pommel of the saddle, into the sweaty shoulders below the horse's withers, and he felt the horse move out and into the road and up to the crossing of the ways just as a buggy and two fast bay mares came around the corner.

The driver of the bays stopped as he saw his cousin thrown like a pig over the pommel and held there kicking and cursing.

"I was looking for him," said Richard Travis quietly, "but I would like to know what it all means."

The big glasses shone in kindly humor. They did not reflect any excitement in the eyes behind them.

"I am afraid it means that he is drunk. Perhaps he will tell you about it. Quite unusual, I must say—he seemed to be trying to drown a young lady in a spring."

He eased his burden over the saddle and dropped him into the road.

Richard Travis took it in instantly, and as Clay rode away he heard the cousin say: "You damned yellow cur—to bear the name of Travis."



CHAPTER III

WORK IN A NEW LIGHT

It was an hour before Clay Westmore rode back to Millwood. He had been too busy plowing that day to get, sooner, a specimen of the rock he had seen out-cropping on Sand Mountain. At night, after supper, he had ridden over for it.

And now by moonlight he had found it!

He flushed with the strength of it all as he put it in his satchel—the strength of knowing that not even poverty, nor work, nor night could keep him from accomplishing his purpose.

Then he rode back, stopping at Millwood. For he thought, too, that he might see Helen, and while he had resolved not to force himself on her after what she had said when he last saw her, still he wished very much to see her now and then.

For somehow, it never got out of his deductive head that some day she would learn to love him. Had he known the temptation, the despair that was hers, he would not have been so quietly deliberate. But she had never told him. In fact, he had loved her from a distance all his life in his quiet way, though now, by her decree, they were scarcely more than the best of friends. Some day, after he had earned enough, he would tell her just how much he loved her. At present he could not, for was he not too poor, and were not his mother and sister dependent upon him?

He knew that Harry Travis loved her in a way—a love he was certain would not last, and in the fullness and depths of his sincere nature, he felt as sure of ultimately winning her, by sheer force of strength, of consistency and devotion, as he was that every great thing in life had been done by the same force and would be to the end of time.

As sure as that, by this same force, he, himself, would one day discover the vein of coal which lay somewhere in the beautiful valley of the Tennessee.

And so he waited his time with the easy assurance of the philosopher which he was, and with that firm faith which minds of his strength always have in themselves and their ultimate success.

It surprised him, it is true—hurt him—when he found to what extent Harry Travis had succeeded in winning the love of Helen. He was hurt because he expected—hoped—she would see further into things than she had. And counting all the poverty and hardships of his life, the Sunday afternoon when he had left her in the arbor, after she had told him she was engaged to Harry Travis, he could not remember when anything had been so hard for him to bear. Later he had heard how she had gone to work in the mill, and he knew that it meant an end of her love affair with Harry.

To-night something told him it was time to see her again, not to tell her of his own love, and how it would never change, whether she was mill girl or the mistress of Millwood, but to encourage her in the misery of it all.

Work—and did not he himself love to work? Was it not the noblest thing of life?

He would tell her it was.

He was surprised when he saw what had just happened; but all his life he had controlled himself to such a degree that in critical moments he was coolest; and so what with another might have been a serious affair, he had turned into half retributive fun, but the deadliest punishment, as it afterwards turned out, that he could have inflicted on a temperament and nature such as Harry Travis'. For that young man, unable to stand the gibes of the neighborhood and the sarcasm of his uncle when it all became known, accepted a position in another town and never came back again.

To have been shot or floored in true melodramatic style by his rival, as he stood on a rock with a helpless girl in his clutch, would have been more to his liking than to be picked up bodily, by the nape of his neck, and taken from the scene of his exploits like a pig across a saddle.

That kind of a combat did not meet his ideas of chivalry.

Helen was dressed in her prettiest gown when Clay rode back to Millwood, after securing the samples he had started for. She knew he was coming and so she tied a white scarf over her head and went again to her favorite seat beneath the trees.

"I don't know how to thank you, Clay," she said, as he swung down from his saddle and threw his leathern bag on the grass.

"Now, you look more like yourself," he smiled admiringly, as he looked down on her white dress and auburn hair, drooping low over her neck and shoulders.

"Tell me about yourself and how you like it at the mill," he went on as he sat down.

"Oh, you will not be willing to speak to me now—now that I am a mill-girl," she added. "Do you know? Clay—"

"I know that, aside from being beautiful, you have just begun to be truly womanly in my sight."

"Oh, Clay, do you really think that? It is the first good word that has been spoken to me since—since my—disgrace."

He turned quickly: "Your disgrace! Do you call it disgrace to work—to make an honest living—to be independent and self-reliant?"

He picked up his bag of samples and she saw that his hands had become hard and sunburnt from the plow handles.

"Helen," he went on earnestly, "that is one of the hide-bound tyrannies that must be banished from our Southland—banished as that other tyranny, slavery, has been banished—a sin, which, with no fault of our own, we inherited from the centuries. We shall never be truly great—as God intended we should be great—until we learn to work. We have the noblest and sunniest of lands, with more resources than man now dreams of, a greater future than we know of if we will only work—work and develop them. You have set an example for every girl in the South who has been thrown upon her own resources. Never before in my life have I cared—so—much—for you."

And he blushed as he said it, and fumbled his samples.

"Then you do care some for me?" she asked pleadingly. She was heart-sick for sympathy and did not know just what she said.

He flushed and started to speak. He looked at her, and his big glasses quivered with the suppressed emotions which lay behind them in his eyes.

But he saw that she did not love him, that she was begging for sympathy and not for love. Besides, what right had he to plan to bring another to share his poverty?

He mounted his horse as one afraid to trust himself to stay longer. But he touched her hair in his awkward, funny way, before he swung himself into the saddle, and Helen, as she went into the desolate home, felt uplifted as never before.

Never before had she seen work in that light—nor love.



CHAPTER IV

MAGGIE

It was Maggie's last day at the mill, and she had been unusually thoughtful. Her face was more pinched, Helen thought, and the sadness in her eyes had increased.

Helen had proved to be an apt pupil, and Maggie declared that thereafter she would be able to run her machine without assistance.

It was Saturday noon and Maggie was ready to go, though the mill did not shut down until six that day. And so she found herself standing and looking with tearful eyes at the machine she had learned to love, at the little room in which she had worked so long, supporting her invalid father and her little ones—as she motherly called the children. It had been hard—so hard, and the years had been long and she was so weak now, compared to what she had been. How happy she had thought the moment of her leaving would be; and yet now that it had come—now—she was weeping.