simple
act of earning their daily bread!

Ramsey Thomas, happening to be in a near-by city, and answering a
summons by telegraph, arrived at the scene in an automobile as Courtland
stood there, grimed and tattered from his fight with death.

Ramsey Thomas, baffled, angry, distressed, wriggled out of his car to
the sidewalk and faced Courtland, curiously conspicuous and recognizable
with all his disarray. Courtland towered above the great man with
righteous wrath in his eyes. Ramsey Thomas cringed and looked
embarrassed. He had come to look over the ground to see how much trouble
they were going to have getting the insurance, and he hadn't expected
to be met by a giant Nemesis with blackened face and singed eyebrows.

"Oh, why--I," he began, nervously. "It's Mr. Courtland, isn't it? They
tell me you've been very helpful during the fire! I'm sure we're much
obliged. We'll not forget this, I assure you--"

"Mr. Thomas," broke in Courtland, in a clear, decisive voice, "you
wanted to know a year ago why I wouldn't accept your proposition, and
you couldn't understand my reason for refusing. There it is!"

He pointed eloquently to the heap of ruins.

"Go over to that warehouse and see the rows of charred bodies! Look at
the agonized faces of the dead, and hear the groans of the dying. See
the living who are scarred or crippled for life. You are responsible for
all that! If I had accepted your proposal I would have been responsible,
too. And now I mean to spend the rest of my life fighting the conditions
that make such a catastrophe as this possible!"

Courtland turned, and in spite of his tatters and soil walked
majestically away from him down the street.

Ramsey Thomas stood rooted to the ground, watching him, a strange
mingling of emotions chasing one another over his rugged old
countenance: astonishment, admiration, and fury in quick succession.

"Drat him!" he said, under his breath. "Drat him! Now he'll be a worse
pest than that little rat of a preacher, for he's got twice as much
brains and education!"

CHAPTER XXX

The summer passed in hard, earnest work.

Courtland had been back at his studies four weeks when there came
another letter from Tennelly. Gila had gone to her aunt's, down at
Beechwood, for a two weeks' stay. She was worn out with the various
functions of the summer and needed a complete rest. They were to be
married soon, perhaps in December, and there would be a lot to do to
prepare