ery glad to accept the offer, and made himself ready to go
with more of his old-time interest than he had shown since his
sickness. The Judge brightened up also, and said to him, as he was
about to step into the train: "Now, Brad, don't hurry back; take your
time, and enjoy yourself. Go around by Chicago, if you feel like it."

After the train pulled out, and they were riding home, the Judge said
to his wife: "Mrs. Brown, you must take good care of me now. I want to
live to see a party grow up to the level of that young man's ideas.
This firm is crippled, but it is not in the hands of a receiver, Mrs.
Brown."

"I'll be the receiver," Mrs. Brown said.

The Judge shifted the lines into his left hand.

The horse fell into a walk. "Mrs. Brown, if this weren't a public road,
I'd be tempted to put my strong right arm around you and give you a
squeeze."

"I don't see any one looking," she said, and her eyes took on a
pathetic suggestion of the roguishness her face must have worn in
girlhood.

He put his arm about her, and gave her a great hug. After that she laid
her head against his shoulder, and cried a little; the Judge sighed.

"Well, we'll have to get reconciled to being alone, I suppose; we can't
expect to keep him always. I think it's a woman, Mrs. Brown."

XXX.

THE GREAT ROUND UP.

During his stay in St. Louis Bradley found the papers filled with the
Alliance movement in Kansas, and looked for Ida's name each morning.
She was in the western part of the State, but moving eastward; and when
a few days later he saw her announced in the Kansas City morning papers
to speak at the great "round up" at Chiquita, he packed his valise on
the sudden impulse, and started on the next train, determined to hear
her speak once more at least.

It was just noon when he alighted from the train at Chiquita. The day
was dry, hazy, resplendent October. The wind was strong but amiable,
and was full of the smell of corn and of that warm, pungent, smoky odor
which forms the Indian summer atmosphere of the West. The wind rushed
up the broad street past him, carrying the dust and leaves in its
powerful clutches, and laying strong hands upon his broad back. The sky
was absolutely without speck, but a pale mist seemed to dim the
radiance of the sun, and lent a milky white tone to the blue of the
sky.

As he moved slowly off up the street, he studied the town and the
people from the standpoint his life in the East had given