pil to send his body home. "It's not a pleasant place to be lying
while the world is moving and doing and bettering," he had said with a
feeble smile, "but it rather seems as though we ought to go back to the
place we came from in the end. The townspeople will come in for a look
at me; and after they have had their say I shan't have much to fear from
the judgment of God. The wings of the Victory, in there"--with a weak
gesture toward his studio--"will not shelter me."

The cattleman took up the comment. "Forty's young for a Merrick to cash
in; they usually hang on pretty well. Probably he helped it along with
whisky."

"His mother's people were not long-lived, and Harvey never had a robust
constitution," said the minister mildly. He would have liked to say
more. He had been the boy's Sunday-school teacher, and had been fond of
him; but he felt that he was not in a position to speak. His own sons
had turned out badly, and it was not a year since one of them had made
his last trip home in the express car, shot in a gambling house in the
Black Hills.

"Nevertheless, there is no disputin' that Harve frequently looked upon
the wine when it was red, also variegated, and it shore made an oncommon
fool of him," moralized the cattleman.

Just then the door leading into the parlor rattled loudly, and everyone
started involuntarily, looking relieved when only Jim Laird came out.
His red face was convulsed with anger, and the Grand Army man ducked
his head when he saw the spark in his blue, bloodshot eye. They were all
afraid of Jim; he was a drunkard, but he could twist the law to suit his
client's needs as no other man in all western Kansas could do; and
there were many who tried. The lawyer closed the door gently behind him,
leaned back against it and folded his arms, cocking his head a little
to one side. When he assumed this attitude in the courtroom, ears were
always pricked up, as it usually foretold a flood of withering sarcasm.

"I've been with you gentlemen before," he began in a dry, even tone,
"when you've sat by the coffins of boys born and raised in this town;
and, if I remember rightly, you were never any too well satisfied when
you checked them up. What's the matter, anyhow? Why is it that reputable
young men are as scarce as millionaires in Sand City? It might almost
seem to a stranger that there was some way something the matter with
your progressive town. Why did Ruben Sayer, the brightest young lawyer
you e