claimed.

"No, he saved Jean," put in Lettie.

"And O'mie saved Phil," Bess Anderson urged. "Just grabbed that knife in
time."

"Well, I thaved mythelf," Bud piped in.

He never could find any heroism in himself who, more than any other boy
among us, had a record for pulling drowning boys out of the Deep Hole by
the Hermit's Cave, and killing rattlesnakes in the cliff's crevices,
and daring the dark when the border ruffians were hiding about
Springvale.

An angry growl of thunder gave us warning of the coming storm. In our
long race home before its wrath, in the dense darkness wrapping the
landscape, we could only trust to the ponies to keep the way. Marjie
rode close by my side that night, and more than once my hand found hers
in the darkness to assure her of protection. O'mie, bless his red head!
crowded Lettie to the far side of the group, keeping Tell on the other
side of her.

When I climbed the hill on Cliff Street that night I turned by the
bushes and caught the gleam of Marjie's light. I gave the whistling call
we had kept for our signal these years, and I saw the light waver as a
good-night signal.

That night I could not sleep. The storm lasted for hours, and the rain
swept in sheets across the landscape. The darkness was intense, and the
midsummer heat of the day was lost in the chill of that drouth-breaking
torrent. After midnight I went to my father's room. He had not retired,
but was sitting by the window against which the rain beat heavily. The
light burned low, and his fine face was dimly outlined in the shadows. I
sat down beside his knee as I was wont to do in childhood.

"Father," I began hesitatingly, "Father, do you still love my mother?
Could you care for anybody else? Does a man ever--" I could not say
more. Something so like tears was coming into my voice that my cheeks
grew hot.

My father's hand rested gently on my head, his fingers stroking the
ripples of my hair. White as it is now, it was dark and wavy then, as my
mother's had been. It was the admiration of the women and girls, which
admiration always annoyed and embarrassed me. In and out of those set
waves above my forehead his fingers passed caressingly. He knew the
heart of a boy, and he sat silent there, letting me feel that I could
tell him anything.

"Have you come to the cross-roads, Phil?" he asked gently. "I was
thinking of you as I sat here. Maybe that brought you in. Your boyhood
must give way to manhood soon. These