ic steps; the challenge hurled at the
star-world's complacent reign. Even the perfect burnish of the silver
moon was powerless before the victorious march of day.

His spirit responded in perfect harmony. As the flush of victory
deepened it reminded him of all that a life of effort meant. The
myriad hues growing in the east were the symbol of human hope of
success so hardly striven. The massing billows, fantastic
cloud-shapes, rich in splendid habiliments, suggested the enthronement
of joy supreme. And then, in blazing splendor, the golden rising sun
pointed the achievement of that perfect happiness which the merciful
Creator designs for every living creature.

It was a moment when there should have been no room for shadowed
memory. It was a moment when only the great looking forward should
have filled him. But the strong soul of the man had been deeply seared
by the conflict which had been fought and won. In the midst of all the
emotion of that day of days memory would not wholly be denied, and he
dwelt upon those events of which he had read so deeply in the pages of
his book of life.

For all his desire to forget, the rapid moving scenes of the summer
days came back to him now, vivid, painful. It was as though the pure
search-light of dawn had a power of revealing no less than its
inspiration of hope and delight. He contemplated afresh his journey
down the river with his prisoner and his loyal friends. He remembered
his landing on that very spot when sleep wrapped the Mission of St.
Agatha, as it did now. He thought of his first visit to the Padre, and
of his ultimate telling of his story to the two women who had suffered
so deeply at the hands of the murderer. It had been painful. Yet it
had not been without a measure of compensation. Had he not run the man
to earth? And was not the avenging of the girl he loved yet to come?
Yes, this had been so, and he dwelt on the courage and patience which
governed the simple women who listened to the details of man's
merciless villainy.

The story told, then had come the great looking forward. His work
completed, he had promised that not a consideration in the world should
stay his feet from the return. And Jessie had yielded to his urgency.
On that return she would give herself to him, and the beloved Padre
should bless their union in the little Mission House. Then had come
the mother's renunciation of all the ties which had so long held her to
the banks