me back? Blanked if
you do! It was a squar' deal, wa'n't it?"

"Yes, I played fair, 'Mexico,' but--"

"Then go to hell!" "Mexico's" tone was not at all unfriendly, but his
vocabulary was limited, and he was evidently deeply stirred. "We're
squar' an'--an' blanked if I don't believe ye're white! Put it thar!"
With a single stride "Mexico" was over the seat that separated him from
the platform and reached out his hand. The doctor took it in a hard
grip.

"Look here, men," he said, when "Mexico" had resumed his seat, "I've got
to do something with this money. I've got at least five thousand that
don't belong to me."

"'Tain't ours," called a voice.

"Men," continued the doctor, "I'm starting out on a new track. I want
to straighten out the past all I can. I can't keep this money. I'd feel
like a thief."

But such an ethical code was beyond the men, and one and all protested
to each other, in tones that were quite audible over the hall and with
anathemas of more or less terrible import, that the money was not theirs
and that they would not touch it. The doctor listened for a minute or
more and then, with the manner of one closing a discussion, he said,
"All right. If you won't help me I'll have to find some way, myself, of
straightening this up. This is all I have to say. I'm no preacher and
I'm not any better than the rest of you, but I'd like to be a great deal
better man than I am, and, with God's help, I'm going to try. That's my
religion."

And with these words he sat down, leaving the people still staring at
him and waiting for something in the way of closing exercises to what
must have been the most extraordinary religious service in all their
experience. Softly, Margaret began to play the old hymn, "Nearer, My
God, to Thee!" The men, accepting it as a signal, rose to their feet and
began to sing, and with these great words of aspiration ringing through
their hearts they passed out into the night.

Among the many who lingered to speak to the doctor were "Mexico,"
"Peachy," and, of course, his faithful follower, Tommy Tate. "Mexico"
drew him off to one corner.

"Say, pard," he began, "you've done me up many a time before, but
blanked if yeh haven't hit me this time the worst yet! When you was
talkin' about them two little chaps--" here "Mexico's" hard face began
to work and his voice to quiver--"you put the knife right in here. I had
a brother once," he continued in a husky voice. "I wish to God someone