a sucker of me that way! To
take me in like that!"

"Oh," said the boy, "I do nothing but shoot this thing from morning
till night. It was my great grandfather's."

And from that time the two were one.

But another thing happened which cemented the tie more strongly. One
Saturday afternoon Jack took a crowd of his boy friends down to the
river for a plunge. The afternoon was bright and warm; the frost of
the morning making the water delightful for a short plunge. It was
great sport. They all obeyed him and swam in certain places he marked
off--all except James Adams. He boldly swam out into the deep current
of the river and came near losing his life. Jack plunged in in time
to reach him, but had to dive to get him, he having sunk the third
time. It required hard work to revive him on the bank, but the man
was strong and swung the lad about by the heels till he got the water
out of his lungs, and his circulation started again. James opened his
eyes at last, and Jack said, smiling: "That's all right, little 'un,
but I feared onct, you was gone."

He took the boy home, and then it was that for the first time for
fifteen years he saw and talked to the woman he loved.

"Mother," said the boy, "this is the new blacksmith that I've been
telling you about, and he is great guns--just pulled me out of the
bottom of the Tennessee river."

Jack laughed and said: "The little 'un ca'n't swim as well as he can
shoot, ma'am."

There was no sign of recognition between them, nothing to show they
had ever seen each other before, but Jack saw her eyes grow tender at
the first word he uttered, and he knew that Margaret Adams loved him
then, even as she had loved him years ago.

He stayed but a short while, and James Adams never saw the silent
battle that was waged in the eyes of each. How Jack Bracken devoured
her with his eyes,--the comely figure, the cleanliness and sweetness
of the little cottage--his painful hungry look for this kind of peace
and contentment--the contentment of love.

And James noticed that his mother was greatly embarrassed, even to
agitation, but he supposed it was because of his narrow escape from
drowning, and it touched him even to caressing her, a thing he had
never done before.

It hurt Jack--that caress. Richard Travis's boy--she would have been
his but for him. He felt a terrible bitterness arising. He turned
abruptly to go.

Margaret had not spoken. Then she thanked him and bade James change
h