n once
assailed by the temptation to return to the free life of Pepper
County, Mr. Blodgett having completely recovered now, and only desiring
vengeance of a corporal nature. But a bargain was a bargain, and Austen
Vane stuck to his end of it, although he had now begun to realize many
aspects of a situation which he had not before suspected. He had long
foreseen, however, that the time was coming when a serious disagreement
with his father was inevitable. In addition to the difference in
temperament, Hilary Vane belonged to one generation and Austen to
another.

It happened, as do so many incidents which tend to shape a life, by
a seeming chance. It was a Tune evening, and there had been a church
sociable and basket picnic during the day in a grove in the town of
Mercer, some ten miles south of Ripton. The grove was bounded on one
side by the railroad track, and merged into a thick clump of second
growth and alders where there was a diagonal grade crossing. The picnic
was over and the people preparing to go home when they were startled by
a crash, followed by the screaming of brakes as a big engine flew past
the grove and brought a heavy train to a halt some distance down the
grade. The women shrieked and dropped the dishes they were washing,
and the men left their horses standing and ran to the crossing and then
stood for the moment helpless, in horror at the scene which met their
eyes. The wagon of one--of their own congregation was in splinters, a
man (a farmer of the neighbourhood) lying among the alders with what
seemed a mortal injury. Amid the lamentations and cries for some one
to go to Mercer Village for the doctor a young man drove up rapidly and
sprang out of a buggy, trusting to some one to catch his horse, pushed,
through the ring of people, and bent over the wounded farmer. In an
instant he had whipped out a knife, cut a stick from one of the alders,
knotted his handkerchief around the man's leg, ran the stick through the
knot, and twisted the handkerchief until the blood ceased to flow. They
watched him, paralyzed, as the helpless in this world watch the capable,
and before he had finished his task the train crew and some passengers
began to arrive.

"Have you a doctor aboard, Charley?" the young man asked.

"No," answered the conductor, who had been addressed; "my God, not one,
Austen."

"Back up your train," said Austen, "and stop your baggage car here. And
go to the grove," he added to one of the