freedom and independence. She felt her heart expand with its wholesome
breath, her soul fill with its sustaining truth.

She felt--

What was that?

An unmistakable outburst of a drunken song at the foot of the slope:--

"Oh, my name it is Johnny from Pike,
I'm h-ll on a spree or a strike." . . .

She stopped as crimson with shame and indignation as if the viewless
singer had risen before her.

"I knew when to bet, and get up and get--"

"Hush! D--n it all. Don't you hear?"

There was the sound of hurried whispers, a "No" and "Yes," and then a
dead silence.

Christie crept nearer to the edge of the slope in the shadow of a
buckeye. In the clearer view she could distinguish a staggering
figure in the trail below who had evidently been stopped by two other
expostulating shadows that were approaching from the shelter of a tree.

"Sho!--didn't know!"

The staggering figure endeavored to straighten itself, and then slouched