cracked his whip and drove off in high good humour, for he
had made a smart slap at the church, as he always loved to do in Lawyer
Ed's presence, and had escaped before that glib Irishman could answer.
He could catch something roared out behind him, about a man who could
stay home from church so that he might be a hypocrite seven days in the
week and half the nights too, but he pretended not to hear.

Meanwhile Angus McRae and his little son rattled away down one street
and along another and out upon the country road. Just where the town
and country met stretched a row of ragged, tumble-down buildings.
There was an ill-smelling hotel, with two or three loungers smoking on
the sagging veranda, a long fence covered with tattered and glaring
circus posters, a half-dozen patched and weather-beaten houses and a
row of abandoned sheds and barns.

Algonquin proper was a pretty little town, all orchards and gardens and
winding hilly streets smothered in trees. And the dreary wretchedness
of its back entrance, as it might be called, was all the more painful
in contrast. Willow Lane, this miserable little street was named; but
Angus McRae had long termed it, in his secret heart, the Jericho Road.
For the old tavern at the end of it had proved the downfall of many a
traveller on that highway, and many a man had Angus picked up, who had
fallen there among thieves.

Every one on the Jericho Road knew him well, and went to him for help
in time of trouble and, though they did not realise it, he was indeed
their neighbour in precisely the way his Master meant him to be.

The lane turned into the country road, and once more all was fragrance
and beauty. It curved around the southern shore of Lake Algonquin; on
one side the forest, dark and cool, its dim floor splashed with golden
light, its arches ringing with the call of the Canada bird, on the
other side the blue and white of the lake, laughing and tumbling
beneath the blue and white of the sky.

When the gleam of the water came into view, the little boy clapped his
hands and churned up and down in delight. The fresh, damp wind fanned
his face, and he shouted to the white-winged gulls dipping and soaring
out there in their free ocean of air. He looked up laughingly into his
father's face, but quickly became grave. His father's eyes were
wistful; he had not spoken for a long time. The child remembered vague
hints of trouble that afternoon in Lawyer Ed's office.

"You won