ions
of all the family hopes and happiness, leaving a blackened wreck where
there had been unity, comfort and peace.

If his father was disabled seriously, their prospects became a very
grave problem. Bart, too, was worried about the loss to the express
company. The books were probably out on the desk when the fire
commenced, the safe was open, and the loss in money and records meant
considerable.

Bart felt that he was undertaking the hardest task of his life when he
reached home and broke the news to his mother--it was like disturbing
the peace of some earthly Eden.

Mrs. Stirling went at once to the hospital with her eldest daughter,
Bertha. Bart, very anxious and miserable, got the younger boys to bed
and tried to cheer up his little sister Alice, who was in a transport of
grief and suspense.

The strain was relieved when Bertha Stirling came home about eleven
o'clock.

She was in tears, but subdued any active exhibition of emotion until
Alice, on the assurance that her father was resting comfortably at the
hospital, was induced to retire.

Then she broke down utterly, and Bart had a hard time keeping her from
being hysterical.

She said that her mother intended staying all night at the side of her
suffering husband and had tried to send some reassuring word to her son.

"You must tell me the worst, you know, Bertha," said Bart. "What do
they say at the hospital? Is father in serious danger? Will he die?"

"No," answered the sobbing girl, "he will not die, but oh! Bart--the
doctor says he may be blind for life!"

CHAPTER V

READY FOR BUSINESS

Bart Stirling stood ruefully regarding the ruins of the burned express
shed. It was the Fourth of July, and early as it was, the air was
resonant with the usual echoes of Independance Day.

Bart, however, was little in harmony with the jollity and excitement of
the occasion. He had spent a sleepless night, tossing and rolling in bed
until daybreak, when his mother returned from the hospital.

Mr. Stirling was resting easily, she reported, in very little pain or
discomfort, but his career of usefulness and work was over--the doctors
expressed an opinion that he would never regain his eyesight.

Mrs. Stirling was pale and sorrowed. She had grown older in a single
night, but the calm resignation in her gentle face assured Bart that
they would be of one mind in taking up their new burdens of life in a
practical, philosophical way.

"Poor father!" he m