to begin to do determined battle for his rescue.

I did not run my car up to his farm-house. I "negotiated a turn" just as
the man I bought it from in New York had taught me to do; only he
hadn't counted on a rail fence on one side, a rock wall just fifty feet
across from it, and two stumps besides. It was almost like a maxixe, but
I finally got headed toward Providence Road, down which, five miles
away, Hayesboro is firmly planted in a beautiful, dreamy, vine-covered
rustication.

"Oh, I wonder if it could be a devil that is possessing Sam?" I asked
myself, stemming with my tongue a large tear that was taking a
meandering course down my cheek because I was afraid to take either hand
off the steering-gear for fear I would run into a slow, old farm horse,
with a bronzed overalled driver and wagon piled high with all sorts of
uninteresting crates and bales and unspeakable pigs and chickens. As I
skidded past them I told myself I had more than a right to weep over Sam
when I thought of the last time I had seen him before this distressing
interview; the contrast was enough to cause grief.

It had happened the night after Sam's graduation in June and just the
night before I had sailed with Mabel Vandyne and Miss Greenough for a
wander-year in Europe. Sam was perfectly wonderful to look at with his
team ribbon in the buttonhole of his dress-coat, and I was very proud of
him. We were all having dinner at the Ritz with two of Sam's classmates
and the father of one, Judge Vandyne, who is one of the greatest
corporation lawyers in New York. He had just offered Sam a chance in his
offices, together with his own son.

"You'll buck right on up through center just as you do on the gridiron,
old man, to the Supreme bench before you are forty. I'm glad the
governor will have you, for I'll never make it. Oh, you Samboy!" said
Peter Vandyne, who was their class poet and who adored Sam from every
angle--from each of which Sam reciprocated.

And all the rest raised their glasses and said:

"Oh, Samboy!"

The waiters even knew who Sam was on account of the last Thanksgiving
game, and beamed on him with the greatest awe and admiration. And I
beamed with the rest, perhaps even more proudly. Still, that twinkle in
Sam's hazel eyes ought to have made me uneasy even then. I had seen it
often enough when Sam had made up his mind to things he was not talking
about.

"The ladies and all of us," answered Sam to Peter's toast, as he raised