d from an inside pocket and
began to read the hair-raising tale. Toward the end he discovered it
was a serial which left the hero, at the most breathless point, still
hanging. Thereupon Sandy evolved from his own imagination a fitting
and lurid ending that appeased Martin's sense of crude justice and left
nothing to his yearning soul unanswered.

"I call that-er-tale a mighty good one," Martin remarked when, hands
upon knees, eyes staring, and chin hanging, he heard the grand finale.
"Taint allas as the ungodly gets fetched up with so cutely. It's right
comfortin' to think o' that low-down trash a-festerin' in the bottom o'
the gulch."

Then Martin, the gentlest of creatures, went pattering up to bed in his
stocking feet, muttering cheerfully to himself as he mounted the dark
stairs, candle in outstretched hand:

"A festerin' eternally at the bottom!"

After his father departed Sandy sat by his fire alone and waited. So
Lans found him, and gloomily took a chair across the hearth.

"Have you had supper, Lans?" Sandy asked after greeting him cordially.

"Yes. The storm kept me last night. I got back--not long ago. I had
a bite while I waited for the horse to be seen to. The poor beast was
pretty well worn out."

There did not seem to be anything more to say on that subject, so Sandy
remarked:

"Smoke if you care to, Lans; don't mind me."

But Lans did not care to smoke and suddenly he jumped up, plunged his
hands in his pockets and faced Sandy with crimson cheeks and wide eyes.

"Sand," he blurted out, "I'm in a devil of a hole; I've pulled about
all Lost Hollow in with me. I'm a fool and worse, but you know how I
am. Any big passion that seizes me--holds me! I'm not responsible
while the clutch is on me. I ought to be taken out and shot. I----"

But Sandy's blank stare called a halt.

"I--I wouldn't take it that way, Treadwell," he said, thinking that
some obvious villainy of Crothers' had opened Lans's eyes to facts; "I
may be able to get you out of the hole."

Then, ludicrously, the story he had just read to his father came into
his mind. Lans seemed to be the creature at the bottom of the gulch,
and it was up to him, Sandy, to rescue the knave in spite of Martin's
satisfaction in leaving him there to fester. Sandy smiled.

"Good God, Morley, what are you laughing at?" Lans cried; "this is no
laughing matter."

"I beg your pardon, Lans. An idiotic thing occurred to me and you are
such