undid one of the packets, with an ear on the sudden sounds outside
in the passage.

"Brother Paul's got it in the schoolhouse."

Brother Paul! He hadn't been at the entertainment, and no one seemed to
have missed him.

"How did Sister Winifred know?" asked another voice.

"Old Maria told her."

Father Richmond got up and opened the door.

"What is it?"

"It's a new-born Indian baby." The Father looked down as if it might be
on the threshold. "Brother Paul found it below at the village all done
up ready to be abandoned."

"Tell Sister Winifred I'll see about it in the morning."

"She says--pardon me, Father--she says that is like a man. If I do not
bring the little Indian in twenty minutes she will come herself and get
it."

Father Richmond laughed.

"Good-night, my son"; and he went downstairs with the others.

* * * * *

"Colonel, you asleep?" the Boy asked softly.

"No."

He struggled in silence with his mucklucks. Presently, "Isn't it
frightfully strange," he mused aloud. "Doesn't it pull a fella up by
the roots, somehow, to see Americans on this old track?"

The Colonel had the bedclothes drawn up to his eyes. Under the white
quilt he made some undistinguishable sound, but he kept his eyes
fastened on his pardner.

"Everything that we Americans have done, everything that we are, is
achieved by the grace of goin' bang the other way." The Boy pulled off
a muckluck and threw it half across the room. "And yet, and yet--"

He sat with one stocking-foot in his hand and stared at the candle.

"I wonder, Colonel, if it _satisfies_ anybody to be a hustler and a
millionaire."

"Satisfies?" echoed the Colonel, pushing his chin over the bed-clothes.
"Who expects to be satisfied?"

"Why, every man, woman and child on the top o' the earth; and it just
strikes me I've never, personally, known anybody get there but these
fellas at Holy Cross."

The Colonel pushed back the bedclothes a little farther with his chin.

"Haven't you got the gumption to see why it is this place and these men
take such a hold on you? It's because you've eaten, slept, and lived
for half a year in a space the size of this bedroom. We've got so used
to narrowing life down, that the first result of a little larger
outlook is to make us dizzy. Now, you hurry up and get to bed. You'll
sleep it off."

* * * * *

The Boy woke at four o'clock, and after the match-light,