ction day was months
ahead, and if "keeping everlastingly at it" would bring success, Janice
was determined that her idea should be adopted.

Mr. Middler's first sermon on temperance was in no uncertain tone.
Indeed, that good man's discourses nowadays were very different from
those he had been wont to give the congregation of the Union Church
when Janice had first come to Polktown. In the old-fashioned phrase,
Mr. Middler had "found liberty."

There was nothing sensational about his sermons. He was a drab man,
who still hesitated before uttering any very pronounced view upon any
subject; but he thought deeply, and even that super-critic, Elder
Concannon, had begun to praise the pastor of the Union Church.

To start the movement for prohibition in the largest church in the
community was all very well; but Janice and the other earnest workers
realized that the movement must be broader than that. A general
meeting was arranged in the Town House, the biggest assembly room in
town, and speakers were secured who were really worth hearing. All
this went on quite satisfactorily. Indeed, the first temperance rally
was a pronounced success, and white ribbons became common in Polktown,
worn by both young and old.

But Janice's and Nelson Haley's private affairs remained in a most
unsatisfactory state indeed.

First of all, there was a long month to wait before Janice could expect
to see another letter from daddy. It puzzled her that he was forbidden
to write but once in thirty days, by an under lieutenant of the
Zapatist chief, Juan Dicampa, who was Mr. Day's friend--or supposed to
be, and yet the letters came to her readdressed in Juan Dicampa's hand.

She watched the daily papers, too, for any word printed regarding the
chieftain, and perhaps never was a brigand's well-being so heartily
prayed for, as was Juan Dicampa's. Janice never forgot that her father
said Dicampa stood between him and almost certain death.

Considering Nelson Haley's affairs, that young man was quite impatient
because they had come to no head. Nor did it seem that they were
likely to soon.

Nelson had secretly objected when Uncle Jason had asked Judge Little to
put off for a full week the examination of Nelson in his court. The
unfortunate schoolmaster felt that he wanted the thing over and the
worst known immediately.

But it seemed that he was neither to be acquitted at once of the crime
charged against him, nor was he to be found gu