oward the
saddle-bags.

"My children," he cried, to the silent group in the plaza, "God has sent
a miracle!"

After an hour at the bedside the priest said, "He will live," and knelt,
and the mother of the boy and the villagers knelt with him. When
Chesterton raised his eyes, he found that the landlord, who had been
silently watching while the two men struggled with death for the life of
his son, had disappeared. But he heard, leaving the village along the
trail to Mayaguez, the sudden clatter of a pony's hoofs. It moved like a
thing driven with fear.

The priest strode out into the moonlight. In the recovery of the child
he saw only a demonstration of the efficacy of prayer, and he could not
too quickly bring home the lesson to his parishioners. Amid their
murmurs of wonder and gratitude Chesterton rode away. To the kindly care
of the priest he bequeathed El Capitan. With him, also, he left the gold
pieces which were to pay for the fresh pony.

A quarter of a mile outside the village three white figures confronted
him. Two who stood apart in the shadow shrank from observation, but the
landlord, seated bareback upon a pony that from some late exertion was
breathing heavily, called to him to halt.

"In the fashion of my country," he began grandiloquently, "we have come
this far to wish you God speed upon your journey." In the fashion of the
American he seized Chesterton by the hand. "I thank you, senor," he
murmured.

"Not me," returned Chesterton. "But the one who made me 'pack' that
medicine chest. Thank her, for to-night I think it saved a life."

The Spaniard regarded him curiously, fixing him with his eyes as though
deep in consideration. At last he smiled gravely.

"You are right," he said. "Let us both remember her in our prayers."

As Chesterton rode away the words remained gratefully in his memory and
filled him with pleasant thoughts. "The world," he mused, "is full of
just such kind and gentle souls."

* * * * *

After an interminable delay he reached Newport, and they escaped from
the others, and Miss Armitage and he ran down the lawn to the rocks, and
stood with the waves whispering at their feet.

It was the moment for which each had so often longed, with which both
had so often tortured themselves by living in imagination, that now,
that it was theirs, they were fearful it might not be true.

Finally, he said: "And the charm never failed! Indeed, it was wonderf