booster; for Phil was quick to appreciate the kindliness of this
sturdy, pioneering type of man and he felt drawn to him by that
strange, attractive sub-conscious essence which flows from all who are
born to lead, an hypnotic current which is one of the first essentials
of all men who can ever hope successfully to carry out any good or big
undertaking for, or with, their fellow men; the ability with the
triple qualities--to interest, to attract, to hold,--making one feel
that it is good to be within the dominant influence, if only for a
time.

And all day long, in the barn at the rear of the smithy, Wildman
Hanson kept up his groaning, and moaning, and cursing; shouting at the
top of his voice that he was being murdered, and threatening a
separate strangling to half a dozen men whom he called by name,
talking to them as if they were by his side.

Towards closing time, a brilliant burst of evening sunshine flooded
the smithy, and with it came one whose radiating charm made the sun
for a moment slide back to second place.

"Hullo, dad!" she cried. "I thought you weren't going to work here any
more?"

"Hullo, Eilie! I thought so, too, but----Oh, Eileen, this is Phil."

Eileen Pederstone looked in admonishing surprise at her father.

"I beg pardon! Mr. Ralston, our new man,--my daughter, Miss Eileen!"

The young lady bowed sedately to Phil, who was standing a mere dark
silhouette against the glare of the furnace fire. But Eileen was in
the full glow of the flames and, as Phil looked into her face, he
gasped for breath and his heart commenced to thump under his open
shirt.

It was the face of the good samaritan, the good fairy that had of late
so often been pictured in his mind in the day-time, the face that
smiled to him at night through his dreams.

In a flash, he saw himself again; bearded, unkempt, ragged, faint and
hunted, groping for support against the wall of the little kitchen in
the bungalow up on the hill; the sweet vision of the fearless maid
whose heart had opened in practical sympathy to his broken appeal for
succour, her ready response and----

But he pushed his crowding thoughts away, for he was standing before
her--pale, mute and almost foolish.

He bowed, not daring to raise his eyes to hers lest she should
recognise him. But he need not have feared on that score, for to her
he was merely the clean-cut outline of a shadow;--but even had it not
been so, the difference between the young, beard