ever heard. He wrote me one letter, expressing his sympathy,
and in that letter I remember he said he had abandoned the tunnel because
he was convinced that it was not a safe place to work, and probably it
never would have amounted to anything, anyway."

"Do you suppose he is still prospecting somewhere in the mountains,
mother?"

"I don't know, Willis. Probably not, for that was ten years ago, you
know."

The remains of the last log dropped between the andirons and rolled over.
Mrs. Thornton rose.

"It's time we were in bed, son, long ago." With that she gently bent,
kissed him on the forehead, and slipped off to her own room, leaving him
with the dying fire. He sat still a long time, his eyes wide open and his
fists clenched.

"If I only could," he was saying. "If I only could."

CHAPTER III

In Which Willis Is Honored

"You're always trying to get in a new fellow, Chuck. We never would have
a new member if you didn't do your scouting around. You know more about
the fellows in this town than any half-dozen of the rest of us. How do
you get next to them?"

These remarks came from Robert Dennis, the splendid captain of the High
School Basket Ball Team. He had met a few of his companions at the Young
Men's Christian Association that evening.

The Association was a very handsome, four-story brick that stood some
distance back from the street. Of all the places in the community for
young fellows to "hang out" the Association was the most popular. At any
hour after school, until closing time in the evening, small groups of
fellows of every age might be found in the various departments, talking
athletics, planning an all-day hike into the mountains, discussing an
amateur theatrical, a debating club, a Bible study supper, or some other
of the many activities carried on by these fellows with the Association
as a basis of operations and a partner. It appealed to the best fellows
in the school, and even in the entire community, for it had very early in
its history made itself known as a clean, broad-minded, sympathetic, and
constructive agency in the lives of boys and young men. It appealed to
the fellows because they could have a hand in its operations and a voice
in its government; because it stood for clean sport, clean bodies, clean
minds, healthy spirits, and a type of social life that had all the
appearances of being powerfully masculine, and yet clean and gentlemanly.
It stood for a three-sided manhoo