ften
happens, they say."

But Silas Long was too deeply concerned over the tramp's wickedness to
pay any heed to this frivolous remark.

The minister was walking ahead, in gloomy silence. His heart was still
full of hot indignation, but it was mingled with regret and deep
disappointment. He had wanted to do this lonely, sad man good, and in
his haste, he feared, he had done him only harm.

But there was one pair of eyes that had regarded John McIntyre's action
with perfect approval. Those eyes were now looking up at Jake Sawyer,
alight with unholy joy. "Say," whispered the eldest orphan, jerking
his foster-father's coat, "I like that man. He's awful bad, an' I
think he's just bully."

The next day the tale of the tramp's outrageous treatment of the
minister flew through Elmbrook like the news of a fire in the mill.
Sandy McQuarry had been away in Lakeview all day, and did not hear it
until he was seated with his family and the mill-hands at the supper
table.

Miss Euphemia, his sister, who had been his housekeeper since Sandy's
wife, as folks said, worked herself to death, was the first who dared
to broach the subject, any reference to Mr. Scott being rather
hazardous.

"Yon's a fearfu' buddy ye've got in yer shanty doon yonder, Sandy," she
began solemnly. "Ah'd no let him sleep there anither nicht."

Her brother was busy distributing the fried pork around the table, a
performance at which he was an adept. In spite of a keen desire for
money-making, Sandy was a generous man at his own table, and he had a
way of serving his family that was the admiration of the whole mill
staff. If a man but held up his plate as a slight indication that he
was ready for more, the host could flip him a slice of beef or pork
with the dexterity of a sleight-of-hand magician. At his signals,
"Here, Bob, mon!" "Hi, Peter, lad!" "Look oot, Sam!" away flew each
man's portion, hitting his plate with unerring precision. He had never
been known to miss anybody in his life, not even Miss Euphemia, away at
the other end of the table.

He paused now, his fork suspended, and looked at his sister from under
his bristling brows. "What's he been doin'?" he demanded.

Now that the ice was broken, every one was ready with a different
version of the tale. John McIntyre was an infidel and an outcast, and
had spoken blasphemy and driven the minister and old Hughie Cameron and
a half dozen others away from his door, threatening them wit