rred. A small bare foot felt down and
reached uncertainly, as if blown about by the wind, for a lower branch;
a small hand that had clung to a glass of milk now clung to a limb above
his head. Then Tommy saw that his father, with upraised face, was
standing directly under that figure up there in the angry foliage.

"Steady, Joe, old scout!" said Earle.

"Don't talk to him, Papa," pleaded Tommy.

"He's right, Steve," spoke Mrs. Davis.

But once after this Tommy spoke.

"Joe! Try that un on the other side!"

Again they watched the foot feeling about. Again it found the limb. Once
they saw him, like a bear cub, hug the trunk. Once he slid and fragments
of bark came tumbling down. Closer to earth drew the small figure. They
could hear the calloused little bare feet scraping the bark. Then, all
of a sudden, Steve Earle had swung himself up by the lower branches. His
strong arms reached upward and were lowered down to them, and from his
fingers a gasping little figure slid to the ground.

It was still light enough to see the face. The grin with which he had
started out in life to brave an unfriendly world was gone, and in its
place was terror--terror of those awful heights, of that swaying tree,
of night and storm, and now of these faces about him. The sturdy chest
was rising and falling. He looked pitifully small, like a baby.

There came a blinding flash of lightning, and a clap of thunder that
seemed to burst the woods open. In the momentary flash they saw his
white face and dilated eyes.

Mrs. Davis had sunk to her knees, arms outstretched.

"Darling!" she cried. Tommy had heard his mother say it that way. Then
he turned his head in a sort of embarrassment, for Joe had run into Mrs.
Davis's arms, and Joe was sobbing on Mrs. Davis's ample bosom; and no
gentleman, big or small, likes to witness his friend's emotions.

"I guess it's a go, Steve," said John Davis.

"Looks like it, John," replied Steve.

And then the rain that had held back so long came down through the
forest in a deluge.

XI

BLOOD MONEY

"A man," says Poor Richard, "has three friends--an old wife, an old dog,
and money." Now two of these friends Jim Taylor had. He had an old wife
and he had an old dog, but he had no money. And there are times when,
let comfortable moralists say what they please, a man's need for money
overshadows everything else. Such a time had come to Jim Taylor.

It came at one o'clock on a cold, starry March