shelter as the policemen and I approached. It was a section I knew to
be the rendezvous of outcasts of this and neighboring cities. It was a
place where the bravest officer never went alone. For making a last
stand for the right to their pitiful sordid lives, the criminals herded
together in one desperate band when danger threatened any of the
brotherhood. The very stillness of the streets bespoke hidden iniquity.
Every house presented a closed front. Surely, I thought, ignorance of
conditions could be the only excuse for any woman of any creed choosing
to live in such surroundings as these.

In the cleanest of the hovels I found Miss Gray, her middle-aged figure
shrunken to the proportions of a child. There was no difficulty in
finding the cause of her illness. She was half-starved. Her reason for
being in that section was as senseless as it was mistaken, except to one
whose heart had been fired by a passion for saving souls. After being
revived by a stimulant from my emergency kit, she told me her name,
which I already knew, that she was an American and her calling that of a
missionary. I thought I knew every type of the profession and I was
proud to call many of them my friends, but Miss Gray was an original
model, peculiar in quality and indefinite in pattern.

"Does your Mission Board give you permission to live in a place or
fashion like this?" I asked sternly.

"Haven't any Board," she answered weakly. "I'm an Independent."

"Independent what?" I demanded.

"Independent Daughter of Hope."