in the bank before I chuck my tools. I guess the
lawyers will have to talk before they upset all their fine work for me,"
he suggested shrewdly.

"You must go to Alton right away and see the trust company. I will meet
you there whenever you like--there's nothing to keep me here much
longer."

"When you are feeling ready for the trip, let me know," the mason said
with good feeling. "Say," he added with some confusion, "you're a good
one to be sittin' there calmly talkin' to me about what I am goin' to do
with your money."

"It isn't mine any longer--you must get over that idea."

"What you've always considered to be yours, anyway, and that amounts to
the same thing in this world."

"I like to talk about it with you," Adelle replied simply, and with
perfect sincerity, as every important statement of Adelle's was sincere.
"I want you to have the money really.... I'm glad it is you, too."

"Thank you."

"I'll do everything I can to make it easy for you to get it soon, and
that is why I will go to Alton."

The mason rose from the doorstep and walked nervously to and fro in
front of the shack. At last he muttered,--

"Guess I won't say nothin' to the folks about the money until it is all
settled--it might make 'em kind of anxious."

"No, that would be better," Adelle agreed.

"I'm goin' to pull out of here to-night!"

He turned as he spoke and shoved one foot through the paper wall of his
home, as if he were thus symbolically shedding himself of his toilsome
past. Adelle did not like this impulsive expression, she did not know
why. She rose.

"Let me know your San Francisco address," she said, "and I will write
you when to meet me in Alton."

"All right!"

The mason walked back with her down the hill to the grave of her little
boy. He would have turned back here, but she gently encouraged him to
come with her and stand beside the flower-laden grave. It seemed to her,
after what he had done in risking his life to rescue the child, he had
more right to be there than any one else except herself--far more than
her child's own father. They stood there silently at the foot of the
little mound for some minutes, until Adelle spoke in a perfectly natural
voice.

"I'd have wanted him to do some real work, if he had grown up--I mean
like yours, and become a strong man."

"He was a mighty nice little kid," the mason observed, remembering well
the child, who had often that summer played about his staging and talked