his head erect.

"By Jove! He's no quitter," said his son to himself, as his eyes
followed him. "When he quits he'll be dead. God keep me from shaming
him!"



CHAPTER IV

REJECTED


The hour for the church service had not quite arrived, but already a
number of wagons, buckboards and buggies had driven up and deposited
their loads at the church door. The women had passed into the church,
where the Sunday School was already in session; the men waited outside,
driven by the heat of the July sun and the hotter July wind into the
shade of the church building.

Through the church windows came the droning of voices, with now and then
a staccato rapping out of commands heard above the droning.

"That's Hayes," said a sturdy young chap, brown as an Indian, lolling
upon the grass. "He likes to be bossing something."

"That's so, Ewen," replied a smaller man, with a fish-like face, his
mouth and nose running into a single feature.

"I guess he's doin' his best, Nathan Pilley," answered another man,