f New York--with his profoundly admired
"friend" and tempter Ralph Ritson. It was a wild whirl and plunge from
bad to worse through which Memory led him now--scenes at which he
shuddered and on which he would fain have closed his eyes if possible,
but Memory knows not the meaning of mercy. She tore open his eyes and,
becoming unusually strict at this point, bade him look particularly at
all the minute details of his reckless life--especially at the wrecks of
other lives that had been caused by the wreck of his own. Then the
deepest deep of all seemed to be reached when he rose--or rather fell--
from the condition of tempted to that of tempter, and, somehow, managed
for a time to lead even the far stronger-minded Ralph Ritson on the road
to ruin. But he did not lead him long. The stronger nature soon
re-asserted itself; seized the reins; led the yielding Leather to the
cities of the far west; from gambling took to robbing, till at last the
gay and handsome Ritson became transformed into the notorious Buck Tom,
and left his weaker chum to care for himself.

It was at this point--so Memory recalled to him--that he, Leather, was
stopped, in mid and mad, career, by a man of God with the love of Jesus
in his heart and on his lips. And at this point Memory seemed to change
her action and proved herself, although unmerciful, pre-eminently
faithful. She reminded him of the deep contrition that God wrought in
his heart; of the horror that overwhelmed him when he thought of what he
was, and what he had done; of the sudden resolve he had formed to follow
Ritson, and try to stop him in the fearful career on which he had
entered. Then came the memory of failure; of desperate anxieties; of
futile entreaties; of unaccountably resolute perseverance; of joining
the outlaw band to be near his friend; of being laughed to scorn by them
all of being chased by US troops at the very commencement of his
enterprise; of being severely wounded, rescued, and carried off during
the flight by Buck Tom, and then--a long blank, mingled with awful
dreams and scenes, and ribald songs, and curses--some of all which was
real, and some the working of a fevered brain.

So terribly vivid were these pictures of memory, that one of the shouts
of dreamland absolutely awoke him to the fact that he had extended his
wearied limbs on his couch of pine brush and fallen asleep. He also
awake to the perception that it was broad daylight, and that a real
shout