that this big, gray, kindly man had probably
looked upon many dark pictures in his life. The minister appeared to be
talking half to himself, and there had been abrupt pauses in his
characteristically jerky recital. There was a long silence which he
broke by striking his hands together abruptly, and shaking his head.

"The man that kept the boarding-house was scared for fear the woman
wasn't straight; didn't like the idea of having a strange girl with a
baby left on his hands. I had to reason some with that fellow; but his
wife was all right, and did her full duty by the girl. She was a mighty
pretty young girl, and she took her troubles, whatever they were, like
what you'd call a true sport, Ed."

Thatcher, stretched out on a camp bed at the side of the room, chewing a
cigar, grunted.

"Well," the minister continued, "I was around there about three weeks;
put in all my vacation there. Fact is I hated to go off and leave that
girl until I was sure I couldn't do anything for her. But she was
getting out of the woods before I left, and I offered to help her any
way I could. She didn't seem to lack for money; a couple of letters with
money came for her, but didn't seem to cheer her much. There was a beast
in the jungle,--no doubt of that,--but she was taking good care to hide
him. Didn't seem to care much about taking care of herself, even when
she must have known that it looked bad for her. She was a flighty,
volatile sort of creature; made a lot of what I'd done for her in
bringing over the doctor. That doctor was a brick, too. Lots of good
people in the world, boys. Let me see; Dan, feel in that shooting-coat
of mine on the nail behind you and you'll find the book I started to
tell you about. Thanks. You see it's a little banged up because I've
carried it around with me a good deal--fishing-trips and so on; but it's
acquired tone since I began handling it--the green in that leather has
darkened. 'Society and Solitude.' There's the irony of fate for
you.--Where had I got to? When I went in to say good-bye we had quite a
talk. I thought maybe there was some message I could carry to her
friends for her, but she was game and wouldn't hear to it. She wanted
the little girl baptized, but said she hadn't decided what to name her;
asked me if I could baptize a baby without having a real name. She was
terribly cut up and cried about it. I said I guessed God Almighty didn't
care much about names, and if she hadn't decided on on