alled for help from the town before.
I've raised all the folks I could get a-holt of an' Bob Morton's gone
to get more. They'll be here on the double quick!"

The boast was no idle one. Even as he spoke there was a tramping, a
rush of feet, and a babel of confused, frightened voices, and into the
room flocked the dwellers of the hamlet,--men, women, and children, all
with wind-tossed hair and strained, terrified faces.

"What is it?"

"What's the matter?"

"Where's the wreck?"

As they stood there tragic in the dim light, there was a stir near the
door and Sarah Libbie Lewis pushed her way through the crowd.

She had stopped only to toss a black shawl over her head and in
contrast to its sable folds her cheeks and lips were ashen.

"They told me there was a wreck," she cried, rushing to Jack's side and
seizing his arm wildly. "Oh, you won't go--you won't go and leave me
now, Jack--not so soon--not after to-night!"

Already sobs were choking the words and her hands were clinging to his.

With the supreme defiance of a man prepared to defend his dearest
possession against the universe, Jack Nickerson circled her in his
embrace and faced the throng. No longer was he the shrinking, timorous
supplicant. Victorious love had set her crown upon his brows,
bestowing dignity upon his years and glory upon his manhood. His
explanation came fearlessly to his lips.

"There ain't no wreck," he said quietly. "All the same I'm glad you
saw my lantern an' came, 'cause I've got somethin' to tell you all. Me
an' Sarah Libbie are goin' to get married."

For a moment there was an incredulous hush. Then Willie Spence came to
the rescue.

"Well, I will say, Jack," he drawled, "you had a pretty good nerve to
get us out on a night like this to tell us that! You might at least
have waited 'til mornin'. Still, I reckon if I'd been nigh on to a
quarter of a century gettin' my spunk together to ask a woman to marry
me an' had finally done it, I'd a-wanted somebody to know it."

The words were not unkindly spoken and Jack joined in the general
laugh. Nothing mattered to him now. Oblivious to the spectators, he
was bending down over the woman he loved and murmuring:

"I love you, Sarah Libbie. I've always loved you."

The little old inventor watched the radiant pair a moment then motioned
to the villagers to slip away. But Bartley Coffin could not be
restrained from lagging behind and whispering confidentially in Jack'