sat reading his
paper a feller got in and sat in front of him that was the exact image
of you. He said the likeness was so great that he came in an inch of
speaking to the feller, but, remembering the news of your death, he let
it pass. Then he asked me if I thought there could have been any mistake
made about you and Dora being in that wreck. I told him I thought not,
and left him, but I'm here to confess, John, that from that minute my
mind wasn't fully at rest. Hundreds of times I rolled it over and over
in my thoughts--at night in bed, at work, in meeting, at meals with my
wife--everywhere. Always, always I was wondering if you might be still
alive, fighting your fight and making good away off som'ers. I told my
wife how I was worried and she made light of it--said she herself often
saw resemblances to folks in new faces. Then I guess I would have
dropped it, but for one little, tiny thing that popped into my head one
night while I was listening to a long-winded prayer during a revival.
Well, sir, like a flash of blasting-powder this thought came to me. You
left our town in the dead of night, and it was reasonable to suppose
that you did everything you could to keep folks from knowing who you was
and where you was bound for. Didn't you?"

"Yes," John nodded, and sat waiting.

"I thought so," Cavanaugh continued. "So you see, when the list of the
lost was printed, and your name and Dora's, and your age and hers, and
the town you was from, was given, the question come to me, who was it
that reported them things so accurate after that awful disaster? You
wouldn't have been handing your name and the child's about amongst
strangers on the train before the accident, and if your bodies was
burned up, all your belongings, papers, and the like would have been
destroyed, and-- Well, you see what I mean?"

John started and stared steadily. "I see it now, Sam, but I never
thought of it before. I suppose everybody else overlooked that point but
you."

"Yes, I'm the only one," Cavanaugh answered. "Well, John, after that,
instead of being dead to me, somehow you got alive again. I don't want
to talk like a sniffling old woman, John, for you are older now, but I
loved you like a son, and the hope that you was alive and doing well up
here made me powerful happy. You see, until your trouble come like a
clap of thunder, I was almost living for you and your interests. I
wanted us to establish a business between us that you could ca