austed nerves played him false, and cried out
their desperate state.

As he and Jock left the warm, scented room behind them, and faced
the white, still cold of an apparently dead St. Ange, the boy turned
a drawn face upon Jock, and cried tremblingly, "Say, you
better--keep--yer--hands--off!" Jock stood still, and returned Billy's
agonized stare with one equally grim.

"I've just reached that conclusion myself, Billy," he said, with every
trace of his past mirth gone.

Billy was hoisted on his own petard.

Hatred fled before the sympathy he felt flowing from Jock to him. He
wanted to cry; wanted to fling himself upon his companion and "own up,"
but Jock anticipated all his emotions.

"See here, kid," he said in a voice new to St. Ange's knowledge of Jock;
"you're not the fellow to grudge a poor devil an hour or so of heaven.
There's the hope of an eternity of it for you; but for me there's going
to be only--the memory of this hour. Shake hands, old man, and take this
from me, straight. Keep yourself _fit_ to touch. Lay hold of that and
never let go. The more you care, the more you'll curse yourself, if you
don't. It's the only decent offering a man can take to a woman.
Everything else he can hope to gain afterward. A place for her, money,
and all the rest; but if he goes to her with dirty hands and a heart
full of shame, nothing can make up for it--nothing!

"Billy--I'd give you all I ever hoped to have here or hereafter if I
could begin to-night where you are--and with the power to _want_ to keep
straight."

Billy shivered and looked dumbly, pathetically into the sad face above
him. He had nothing to say. When Jock next spoke he was more like
himself.

"Billy, will you see to a little business for me, and keep mum?"

This was quite in the line of the over-burdened Billy, and he accepted
off-hand.

"I may--go--into camp before Christmas."

"Don't yer!" advised the boy magnanimously. "I ain't ever going to care
again. You can stay here." Jock forbore to smile, but he laid his hand
on Billy's shoulder.

"There's two big stacks of young pine trees up to my shack done round in
bagging and ticketed to a place down the State. They're Christmas trees
for poor kids, and I want you to see to getting them off for me
to-morrow or next day, and if Tom Smith airs any remarks, you let on as
how they hailed from the bungalow; for that's God's truth, when all's
told."

"They'll go, Jock, you bet!" Billy gulped.

Cur