in their sports, he won his own peculiar place in their hearts.

It was during the second year of his residence in Millsburgh that he
adopted the deaf and dumb orphan boy, Billy Rand.

That such a workman should become a leader among his fellow workers was
inevitable. More and more his advice and counsel were sought by those
who toiled under the black cloud that rolled up in ever-increasing
volumes from the roaring furnaces.

The accident which so nearly cost him his life occurred soon after the
new process had taken Adam from his bench to a desk in the office of
the Mill. Helen and John were away at school. At the hospital they
asked him about his people. He smiled grimly and shook his head. When
the surgeons were finally through with him, and it was known that he
would live but could never stand on his feet again, he was still silent
as to his family and his life before he came to the Mill. So they
carried him around by the road on the hillside to his little hut on the
top of the cliff where, with Billy Rand to help him, he made baskets
and lived with his books, which he purchased as he could from time to
time during the more profitable periods of his industry.

As the years passed and the Mill, under Adam Ward's hand, grew in
importance, Millsburgh experienced the usual trials of such industrial
centers. Periodic labor wars alternated with times of industrial peace.
Months of prosperity were followed by months of "hard times," and want
was in turn succeeded by plenty. When the community was at work the
more intelligent and thrifty among those who toiled with their hands
and the more conservative of those who labored in business were able to
put by in store enough to tide them over the next period of idleness