f the
story--and Katherine, in a sort of fascination, stood gazing at that
worth-while spectacle, a first-class newspaperman in full action.

But suddenly he gave a cry of dismay and his arms fell to his sides.

"My mind sees the story all right," he groaned. "I don't know whether
it's that ice-water or the drink, but my arms are so shaky I can't hit
the keys straight."

On the instant Katherine had him out of the chair and was in his
place.

"I studied typewriting along with my law," she said rapidly. "Dictate
it to me on the machine."

There was not a word of comment. At once Billy began talking, and the
keys began to whir beneath Katherine's hands. The first page finished,
Billy snatched it from her, gave a roar of "Copy!" glanced it through
with a correcting pencil, and thrust it into the hands of an
in-rushing boy.

As the boy scuttled away, a thunderous cheering arose from the Court
House yard--applause that outsounded a dozen-fold all that had gone
before.

"What's that?" asked Katherine of Old Hosie, who stood at the window
looking down upon the Square.

"It's Blake, trying to speak. They're giving him the ovation of his
life!"

Katherine's face set. "H'm!" said Billy grimly, and plunged again into
his dictation. Now and then the uproar that followed a happy phrase of
Blake almost drowned the voice of Billy, now and then Old Hosie from
his post at the window broke in with a sentence of description of the
tumultuous scene without; but despite these interruptions the story
rattled swiftly on. Again and again Billy ran to the sink at the back
of the office and let the clearing water splash over his head; his
collar was a shapeless rag; he had to keep thrusting his dripping hair
back from his forehead; his slight, chilled body was shivering in
every member; but the story kept coming, coming, coming, a living,
throbbing creation from his thin and twitching lips.

As Katherine's flying hands set down the words, she thrilled as though
this story were a thing entirely new to her. For Billy Harper,
whatever faults inheritance or habit had fixed upon him, was a
reporter straight from God. His trained mind had instantly seized upon
and mastered all the dramatic values of the complicated story, and his
English, though crude and rough-and-tumble from his haste, was vivid
passionate, rousing. He told how Doctor West was the victim of a plot,
a plot whose great victim was the city and people of Westville, and
th