ut of order) outmanoeuvred the Deacon by accepting both amendments,
and remarking that in a hard fight folks would take all the help they
could get.

Somehow, as soon as the new committee--determining to open a place of
entertainment in opposition to the tavern, and furnish it pleasantly,
and make it an attractive gathering-place for young men--asked for
contributions to enable them to do it, the temperance excitement at
Backley abated marvelously. But Squire Breet, and the doctor, and
several other enterprising men, took the entire burden on their own
shoulders--or pockets--and Joe Digg was as useful as a reformed thief to
a police department. For the doctor, whose professional education had
left him a large portion of his natural common-sense in working order,
took a practical interest in the old drunkard's case, and others of the
committee looked to the necessities of his family, and it came to pass
that Joe was one of the earliest of the reformers. Men still go to the
tavern at Backley, but as, even when the twelve spake with inspired
tongues, some people remained impenitent, the temperance men at Backley
feel that they have great cause for encouragement, and that they have,
at least, accomplished more within a few months than did all the
temperance meetings ever held in their village.

JUDE.

Gopher Hill had determined that it could not endure Jude any longer.

The inhabitants of Gopher Hill possessed an unusual amount of kindness
and long-suffering, as was proved by the fact that Chinamen were allowed
to work all abandoned claims at the Hill. Had further proof been
necessary, it would have been afforded by the existence of a church
directly beside the saloon, although the frequenters of the sacred
edifice had often, during week-evening meetings, annoyed convivial souls
in the saloon by requesting them to be less noisy.

But Jude was too much for Gopher Hill. No one molested him when he first
appeared, but each citizen entered a mental protest within his own
individual consciousness; for Jude had a bad reputation in most of the
settlements along Spanish Creek.

It was not that he had killed his man, and stolen several horses and
mules, and got himself into a state of most disorderly inebriation, for,
in the opinion of many Gopher Hillites, these actions _might_ have been
the visible results of certain virtuous conditions of mind.

But Jude had, after killing a man, spent the victim's money; he had
s