r, all smiles and
congratulations, in spite of a badly blackened eye.

"Come on in, boys!" he called. "It's my treat. Walk right in."

Most of the boys needed no second invitation. Bud Perkins hesitated.
His father was just behind him. "Take a little Schlitz, Buddie. That
won't hurt you," he said.

Bud went in with the others. Every one was in the gayest humour. The
bartender called in the porter to help him to serve the crowd. The
glasses were being filled when a sudden hush fell on the bar-room,
for Sandy Braden, with a face as ghastly as the one he had just left
on the river-bank, came in the back door.

He raised his hand with a gesture of authority. "Don't drink it,
boys!" he said. "It has killed one man to-day. Don't touch it."

Even the bartender turned pale, and there was a moment of intense
silence. Just then some one rushed in and shouted the news of Bill
Cavers's death. The crowd fell away until Sandy Braden and the
bartender were left face to face.

"How much have you in the business here, Bob?" he asked in a
perfectly controlled voice.

The bartender told him.

He took a cheque-book from his pocket and hastily made out a cheque.

"Now, go," he said, as he gave it to him. "I will not be needing a
man in here any more."

He took the keys from his pocket and locked the back door. Then
coming out into the office, where there were a few stragglers
lounging in the chairs, he carefully locked the door leading into the
bar.

"I'm done, boys," he said shortly. "I've quit the business."

CHAPTER XX

ON THE QUIET HILLSIDE

They shall go out no more, oh ye,
Who speak earth's farewell thro' your tears,
Who see your cherished ones go forth
And come not back, thro' weary years.
There is a place-there is a shore
From which they shall go out no more.

_----Kate Tucker Goode._

WHEN sympathetic neighbours came to stay with Mrs. Cavers that night,
and "sit up" with the dead man, she gently refused their kind offer.
"It is kind of you, dear friends," she said, "but I would rather stay
alone to-night. It is the last thing I can do for him, and I shall
not be lonely. I've sat here plenty of nights waiting for him, not
knowing how he would come home--often afraid he would be frozen to
death or kicked by the horses--but to-night he is safe from all that,
and I am not worrying about him at all. I've got him all to myself,
now, and I want to sit here with him, just him and me. Take Libby