John Ward, walking wearily home from a long visit to a sick woman, came,
as he crossed the lumber-yards, upon a group of raftsmen; they had not
heard his approach, and were talking loudly, with frequent bursts of
drunken laughter.

It was towards evening; the sky had been threatening all day, and when
the clouds lifted suddenly in the west, blown aside like tumultuous folds
of a gray curtain, the red sun sent a flood of color across the wintry
landscape; the bare branches of the trees were touched with light, and
the pools of black, clear ice gleamed with frosty fire. John's face had
caught the radiance.

He had come up to the men so silently that he had been standing beside
them a moment before they noticed him, and then Tom Davis, with a start
of drunken fear, tried to hide the bottle which he held.

"Damn you, mate, you're spillin' it!" cried one of the others, making an
unsteady lunge forward to seize the bottle.

"Let up, let up," said Tom thickly. "Don't ye see the preacher?" Though
Davis was not one of his flock, he had the same reverence for the
preacher which his congregation felt. All Lockhaven loved and feared John
Ward.

John had not spoken, even though a little boy, building block houses on a
heap of sawdust near the men, had come up and taken his hand with a look
of confident affection.

The man who had saved the whiskey stumbled to his feet, and leaning
against a pile of lumber stood open-mouthed, waiting for the preacher's