came back to the bedside.

"It's my duty to tell you, Zeb, that in order to hush this thing up they
may offer you more than you can get from a jury. In that case I should
have to advise you to accept."

He was aware that, while he made this statement, Zeb Meader's eyes were
riveted on him, and he knew that the farmer was weighing him in the
balance.

"Sell out?" exclaimed Mr. Meader. "You advise me to sell out?"

Austen did not get angry. He understood this man and the people from
which he sprang.

"The question is for you to decide--whether you can get more money by a
settlement."

"Money!" cried Zeb Meader, "I have found it pretty hard to git, but
there's some things I won't do for it. There's a reason why they want
this case hushed up, the way they've be'n actin'. I ain't lived in
Mercer and Putnam County all my life for nothin'. Hain't I seen 'em run
their dirty politics there under Brush Bascom for the last twenty-five
years? There's no man has an office or a pass in that county but what
Bascom gives it to him, and Bascom's the railrud tool." Suddenly Zeb
raised himself in bed. "Hev' they be'n tamperin' with you?" he demanded.

"Yes," answered Austen, dispassionately. He had hardly heard what Zeb
had said; his mind had been going onward. "Yes. They sent me an annual
pass, and I took it back."

Zeb Meader did not speak for a few moments.

"I guess I was a little hasty, Austen," he said at length.

"I might have known you wouldn't sell out. If you're' willin' to take
the risk, you tell 'em ten thousand dollars wouldn't tempt me."

"All right, Zeb," said Austen.

He left the hospital and struck out across the country towards the
slopes of Sawanec, climbed them, and stood bareheaded in the evening
light, gazing over the still, wide valley northward to the wooded ridges
where Leith and Fairview lay hidden. He had come to the parting of the
ways of life, and while he did not hesitate to choose his path, a Vane
inheritance, though not dominant, could not fail at such a juncture to
point out the pleasantness of conformity. Austen's affection for Hilary
Vane was real; the loneliness of the elder man appealed to the son, who
knew that his father loved him in his own way. He dreaded the wrench
there.

And nature, persuasive in that quarter, was not to be stilled in a field
more completely her own. The memory and suppliance of a minute will
scarce suffice one of Austen's temperament for a lifetime; and his ey