the old church and then carried around the end of the building
and out of sight. Its owner plunged after it and, a moment later, found
himself at the foot of a grass-covered bank, a good deal disheveled
and very much surprised. Also, close at hand some one screamed, in
a feminine voice, and another voice, this one masculine, uttered an
emphatically masculine exclamation.

Galusha sat up. The old church was placed upon a side-hill, its rear
toward the cemetery which he had just been exploring, and its front door
on a level at least six feet lower. He, in his wild dash after the brown
derby, had not noticed this and, rushing around the corner, had been
precipitated down the bank. He was not hurt, but he was rumpled and
astonished. No more astonished, however, than were the young couple who
had been sitting upon the church steps and were now standing, staring
down at him.

Galusha spoke first.

"Oh, dear!" he observed. "Dear me!" Then he added, by way of making the
situation quite clear, "I must have fallen, I think."

Neither of the pair upon the church steps seemed to have recovered
sufficiently to speak, so Mr. Bangs went on.

"I--I came after my hat," he explained. "You see--Oh, there it is!"

The brown derby was stuck fast in the bare branches of an ancient lilac
bush which some worshiper of former time had planted by the church door.
Galusha rose and limped over to rescue his truant property.

"It blew off," he began, but the masculine half of the pair who had
witnessed his flight from the top to the bottom of the bank, came
forward. He was a dark-haired young man, with a sunburned, pleasant
face.

"Say, that was a tumble!" he declared. "I hope you didn't hurt yourself.
No bones broken, or anything like that?"

Galusha shook his head. "No-o," he replied, somewhat doubtfully. "No, I
think not. But, dear me, what a foolish thing for me to do!"

The young man spoke again.

"Sure you're not hurt?" he asked. "Let me brush you off; you picked up a
little mud on the way down."

Galusha looked at the knees of his trousers.

"So I did, so I did," he said. "I don't remember striking at all on the
way, but I could scarcely have accumulated all that at the bottom. Thank
you, thank you!... Why, dear me, your face is quite familiar! Haven't we
met before?"

The young fellow smiled. "I guess we have," he said. "I put you aboard
Lovetts' express wagon Friday afternoon and started you for Wellmouth
Centre. I didn't