nto that car an' take him to Chesterville,' I said.

"He limped to the car an' left without a word.

"I returned to my friends an' gently broke the news.

"Sam blubbered 'Education done it,' says he, as he mournfully shook
his head.

"'Yes,' I says. 'Education is responsible for a damned lot of
ignorance.'

"'An' some foolishness,' says Sam, as he scraped the mud out of his
hair. 'Think of our goin' like that. We ought to have known
better.' "'We knew better,' I says, 'but we had to keep up with
Lizzie.'

"Sam turned toward Lizzie an' moaned in a broken voice, 'I wish it
had killed me.'

"'Why so?' I asked.

"'It costs so much to live,' Sam sobbed, in a half-hysterical way.
'I've got an expensive family on my hands.'

"'You needn't be afraid o' havin' Lizzie on your hands,' says Dan,
who held the girl in his arms.

"'What do you mean?^ Sam inquired.

"'She's on my hands an' she's goin' to stay there,' says the young
man. 'I'm in love with Lizzie myself. I've always been in love
with Lizzie.'

"'Your confession is ill-timed,' says Lizzie, as she pulled away
an' tried to smooth her hair. She began to cry again, an' added,
between sobs: 'My heart is about broken, and I must go home and get
help for my poor father.'

"'I'll attend to that,' says Dan; 'but I warn you that I'm goin' to
offer a Pettigrew for a Henshaw even. If I had a million dollars
I'd give it all to boot.'

"Sam turned toward me, his face red as a beet.

"'The money!' he shouted. 'Get it, quick!'

"'Here it is!' I said, as I put the roll o' bills in his hand.

"'Did you take it off him?'

"'I took it off him.'

"'Poor Aleck!' he says, mournfully, as he counted the money. 'It's
kind o' hard on him.'

"Soon we halted a passin' automobile an' got Sam up the bank an'
over the wall. It was like movin' a piano with somebody playin' on
it, but we managed to seat him on the front floor o' the car, which
took us all home.

"So the affair ended without disgrace to any one, if not without
violence, and no one knows of the cablegram save the few persons
directly concerned. But the price of Alecks took a big slump in
Pointview. No han'some foreign gent could marry any one in this
village, unless it was a chambermaid in a hotel.

"That was the end of the first heat of the race with Lizzie in
Pointview. Aleck had folded up his bluff an' silently sneaked
away. I heard no more of him save from a lady with blond, curly
hair an'