, for the rest his way lay directly ahead, his
life, and his--hope.

"It's all wonderful--wonderful out here, little Joan," he said,
smiling tenderly down upon her sweet face from the superior height at
which Caesar carried him. "Seems like we're goin' to read pages of
a--fresh book. Seems like the old book's all mussed up, so we can't
learn its lessons ever again."

Joan returned the warmth of his gaze. But she shook her head with an
assumption of wisdom.

"It's the same book, dear, only it's a different chapter. You see the
story always goes on. It must go on--to the end. Characters drop out.
They die, or are--killed. Incidents happen, some pleasant, some--full
of sadness. But that's all part of the story, and must be. The story
always goes on to the end. You see," she added with a tender smile,
"the hero's still in the picture."

"An' the--gal-hero."

Joan shook her head decidedly.

"There's no heroine to this story," she said. "You need courage to be
a heroine, and I--I have none. Do you know, Buck," she went on
seriously, "when I look back on all that's gone I realize how much my
own silly weakness has caused the trouble. If I had only had the
courage to laugh at my aunt's prophecies, my aunt's distorted
pronouncements, all this trouble would have been saved. I should never
have come to the farm. My aunt would never have found the Padre. Those
men would never have fired those woods when they burnt my farm,
and--and the gentle-hearted Padre would never have lost his life."

It was Buck's turn to shake his head.

"Wrong, wrong, little gal," he said with a warmth of decision. "When
you came to us--to me, an' we saw your trouble, we jest set to work to
clear a heap o' cobwebs from your mind. That was up to us, because you
were sure sufferin', and you needed help. But all we said, all we told
you not to believe, those things were sure marked out, an' you, an'
all of us had to go thro' with 'em. We can't talk away the plans o'
Providence. You jest had to come to that farm. You jest had to do all
the things you did. Maybe your auntie, in that queer way of hers, told
you the truth, maybe she saw things us others didn't jest see. Who can
tell?"

Joan's eyes lit with a startled look as she listened to the man's
words. They made her wonder at the change in him. Had that terrible
cataclysm impressed him with a new view of the life by which he was
surrounded? It might be. Then, suddenly, a fresh thought occurred to