efore he found a heavy rock. He lugged it back and
said, "Go on away, Reny."

She hurried to a distance, and even Crosson turned his head aside.

On the way home they were all three tired and sick, and Drury had to
stop every now and then to sit down and get strength into his knees.

But there was a sense of grim relief that helped them all, and the bird,
once safely dead, was rapidly forgotten. After that Crosson seemed to
lose his place in Irene's heart, and Drury won all that Crosson lost,
and more. Before long it was understood that Drury and Irene had agreed
to get married as soon as he could earn enough to keep them. All four
parents opposed the match; Irene's because Drury was "no 'count," and
Drury's for much the same reason.

Old Boldin allowed that Irene would be added to his family, for meals
and lodgin', if she married his son; and old Straley guessed that it
would be the other way round, and the Boldin boy would come over to his
house to live.

Also, Drury could get no work in Carthage. Eventually he went to Chicago
to try his luck there. Crosson seized the chance to try to get back to
Irene. One Sunday he took his shot-gun out in the wilderness and brought
down a duck whose throat had so rich a glimmer that he believed it would
delight Irene. He took it to her.

She was out in her garden, and she looked at his gift with eyes so hurt
by the pity of the bird's drooping neck that they were blind to its
beauty.

While Crosson stood in sheepish dismay, recognizing that Drury was
present still in his absence, the minister appeared at his elbow. It was
not the wrecked career of the fowl that shocked the pastor, but the
broken Sabbath.

"It seems to me, Eddie," he said, "that it is high time you were
beginning to take life seriously. Come to church to-night and make up
for your ungodliness."

Crosson consented. It was a good way of making his escape from Irene's
haunted eyes.

The service that night had little influence on his heart, but a month
later a revivalist came into Carthage with a great fanfare of attack on
the hosts of Lucifer. This man was an emotionalist of irresistible fire.
He reasoned less than he sang. His voice was as thrilling as a trombone,
and his words did not matter. It was his tone that made the heart
resound like a smitten bell.

The revivalist struck unsuspected chords of emotion in Eddie Crosson and
made him weep! But he wept tears of a different sort from the waters of
gri