ern skies lit with that pallid yellow which precedes the gold
and amber of the rising sun. Somewhere, far below the horizon, the
great day god was marching onward, ever onward, shedding its splendor
upon a refreshed and waking world.

The valley of Leaping Creek was stirring.

Whatever the shortcomings of the citizens of Rocky Springs, morning
activity was not one of them. But they knew, on this day of days, a
fresh era in the history of the village was about to begin. Every man
knew this. Every woman. Even every child who had power to understand
anything at all.

So, as the golden light spread upward toward the vault of the eastern
heavens, the spirals of smoke curled up from among the trees on the
breathless air. Every cookstove in the village was lit by the
unwillingly busy hands of the men-folk, while the women bedecked
themselves and their offspring, as befitted the occasion and their
position.

Breakfast ensued. It was not the leisurely breakfast of every day,
when men required an ample foundation to sustain their daily routine
of laborious indolence, but a meal at which coffee was drunk in
scalding gulps, and bread and butter, and some homely preserve,
replaced the more substantial fare of chops and steak, or bacon and
cereals.

Then came the real business of the day. Doors opened and men looked
out. Children, with big bow ties upon their heads and sashes at their
waists, scuttled through, about the legs of their parents, and reached
the open. Neighborly voices hailed each other with a cheery greeting,
and the tone was unusual. It was the tone of those who anticipate
pleasantly, or are stirred by the excitement of uncertainty.

Minutes later the footpaths and unpaved tracks lost their deserted
appearance. Solitary figures and groups lounged along them. Men
accompanied by their well-starched womenfolk, women striving vainly to
control their legions of offspring. They all began to move abroad, and
their ways were convergent. They were all moving upon a common goal,
as though drawn thither by the irresistible attraction of a magnet.

From the lower reaches of the village, toward the eastern river, that
better class residential quarter, where the houses, four in number, of
Mrs. John Day, of Billy Unguin, of Allan Dy, and the local blacksmith
were located, an extremely decorous cortege emerged. Here there was
neither bustle nor levity. These were the chief folk of Rocky Springs,
and their position, as example