dly grim.

Lawyer Ed burst out laughing. "'Pon me word you're right," he
exclaimed. "Man, I wish sometimes that our Protestant priests had the
power that you have. But I'm not here to urge you, mind that. I'm not
such a fool as to go down to the Rainy Rapids and try to turn them back
with a pebble. But I just thought I might as well ask you what your
opinion was, when I was here. A great many people of your flock tell
me they will vote just as the Father tells them." He glanced back at
his host as he moved to the door.

"Yes, and they'd better," said the Father. "So you'd like to know what
to say to them, eh?"

"I certainly would." He waited anxiously.

Father Tracy stood watching him go down the steps, his portly figure
filling up the doorway, his good-natured face beaming. "And if it's
news ye're after I suppose ye'll rest neither day nor night till ye get
it."

"Not likely."

"Well--" Father Tracy was enjoying the other's anxiety and was as
deliberate as Jock McPherson--"well, if you meet any of my stray sheep
that look as if they were goin' to vote for the whiskey, ye can tell
them for me that I'd say mass for a dead dog before I'd meddle wid
their lost souls."

Lawyer Ed went down the street, half a block at a stride, in the
direction of J. P.'s office.

Archie Blair's horse and buggy were standing in front of a house next
to the Catholic church. The temptation, combined with his desperate
hurry, was too much. He leaped in and, without so much as "By your
leave," he tore down the street and never drew rein until he fairly
fell out of the vehicle in front of J. P.'s office. He burst in with
the glorious news: "I've got four hundred new votes promised me for
local option. Hurrah! That's better than going to the Holy Land any
day in the year!"

But when the day came at last that was to take Roderick from him, even
Lawyer Ed's love of battle failed him. It was a dreary day, with
Nature in accord with his gloom. A chill wind had blown all night from
the north, lashing Lake Algonquin into foam and making the pines along
the Jericho Road moan sadly. Early in the day the snow began to drive
down from the north and by afternoon the roads were drifted.

Roderick was to leave on the afternoon train for Toronto, and there
take the night express for Montreal and he came into Algonquin in the
morning, to bid his friends good-bye. The sudden change in the weather
had, as usual, been accompanied b