bring him back and give him another chance--yes, damme if I don't git
him back."

And Bill dropped his remorseful eye to the order in his hand. Like the
handwriting of the order that lifted Mayhall like magic into power, the
handwriting of this order, that dropped him like a stone--was Flitter
Bill's own.




THE PARDON OF BECKY DAY


The missionary was young and she was from the North. Her brows were
straight, her nose was rather high, and her eyes were clear and gray.
The upper lip of her little mouth was so short that the teeth just under
it were never quite concealed. It was the mouth of a child and it gave
the face, with all its strength and high purpose, a peculiar pathos that
no soul in that little mountain town had the power to see or feel. A
yellow mule was hitched to the rickety fence in front of her and she
stood on the stoop of a little white frame-house with an elm switch
between her teeth and gloves on her hands, which were white and looked
strong. The mule wore a man's saddle, but no matter--the streets were
full of yellow pools, the mud was ankle-deep, and she was on her way to
the sick-bed of Becky Day.

There was a flood that morning. All the preceding day the rains had
drenched the high slopes unceasingly. That night, the rain-clear forks
of the Kentucky got yellow and rose high, and now they crashed together