t the creek. So much had happened to
him that day, so many and various had been the emotions through which
he had passed, that there was only one thing left him to do. He must
work. He dared not sit down and think. Hard physical labor was what he
required. And the rubbing out of the children's small clothes, and his
own somewhat tattered garments, became a sort of soothing drug which
quieted his troubled mind, and lulled his nerves into a temporary
quiescence. The children were with him, playing unconcernedly upon the
muddy banks of the creek, with all the usual childish zest for
anything so deliciously enticing and soft as liquid river mud.

Vada had forgotten her journey of that morning, it had quite
passed out of her little head in the usual way of such trifling
unpleasantnesses which go so frequently to make up the tally of
childhood's days. Jamie had no understanding of it. His Vada was with
him again, hectoring, guiding him as was her wont, and, in his babyish
way, he was satisfied.

As for Scipio he gave no sign of anything. He was concentrating all
his mental energies on the work in hand, thus endeavoring to shut out
memory which possessed nothing but pain for him. Every now and then a
quick, sidelong glance in the children's direction kept him informed
of their doings and safety, otherwise his eyes were rarely raised from
the iron bath, filled to the brim with its frothing suds.

Striding down the slope from the hut where he had come in search of
Scipio, this was the picture Wild Bill discovered. The little
yellow-headed man was standing in the midst of a small clearing in the
bushes, a clearing long since made for the purposes of his wife's
weekly wash. His back was turned, and his small figure was bowed over
the tub in front of him. Every bush around him was decorated with
clothes laid out on their leafy surfaces, where the sun could best
operate its hygienic drying process. He saw the bobbing heads of the
mudlarking children a few yards away where the low cut-bank hid their
small bodies from view. And somehow an unusual pity stirred his hard,
world-worn heart.

And yet no one could have called him a sentimental man. At least, no
one who knew his method of life. How would it be possible to gild a
man with humane leanings who would sit in to a game at poker, and, if
chance came his way, take from any opponent his last cent of money,
even if he knew that a wife and children could be reduced to
starvation t