thoughts' with insistent detail.

It had happened in an apple orchard in Maine. There had been a day of great festivity, gay in the gathering of apples, and in the knowledge that a ship had been sighted in which the sea captain, his father, was returning from a six months' voyage. He saw himself as a little limping boy who had just come home from the town school, flushed with pride at the success of his first speech; then he saw himself late in the day, when the ship had anchored and the friends had gathered in a circle over the completed work, repeating the speech to the enthusiastic crowd.

How well he remembered the encouraging faces, the baskets of red apples all about, the pungent smell of the fruit, the twisted branches of the trees back of them, and beyond, far down the sloping hill, the great Atlantic on which the ship had come to anchor! His first speech! Even the words stuck in his memory! Then, while the great joy he had felt in their applause was flushing his face and making him tingle with the first stirrings of awakened talent, he had been lifted into the arms of the sea captain who had stolen up behind the tree and heard him. In that moment came the blow which was yet to mar or make him. The proud father, holding him up before the crowd, had cried out with a great roar of laughter:

"He's a pretty bright little rascal, isn't he? We'll have to send him to college one of these days and make a big speaker out of him—even if he is a cripple."

"Even if he is a cripple!" The words rang out as sharply now as they had twelve years before. He heard them so distinctly that the inflection of the big man's voice, thoughtless and unmeaning as it had been, made him throb with the first opening of the wound. Cripple! Cripple! The words were as the whistling of knotted thongs. Never before that day had he heard them applied to him. Now they were to be with him always; he was powerless to forget them. They had pushed him on and on from that time forward, in a mad desire to embrace all the learning within his power so as to show the world some day that it was not a curse of God's, to be less perfect than other men.

CHAPTER II

THE CAPTAIN'S ADVICE

One day later the young pioneer who had come South to make his fortune looked eagerly out upon a distant view of sloping hills. The end of his long journey had come. The little town, nestling at the top of the bluffs, in a setting of thick foliage, brought to him a thrill of expectancy. Everything lay before him there, his beginning on the long journey of his life work, his success or failure, his happiness or his sorrow.

It was still very early in the morning and in the mistiness of the scene, in the shadowy beauty of the daybreak, his imagination carried him far into a future of his own creating. The lazy curling smoke of early morning fires rising from the town became symbolic to him, the soft beauty of an aged oak grove, festooned in grey moss and reflected in the gloomy surface of the water by the pale rose background of dawning day meant to him that disappointments and vain strivings were to pass from him forever now. He was very young and full of expectancy and hope, and as he threw back his head and breathed deeply, the colour rushed into his face, and his shoulders squared themselves unconsciously.

The summons to breakfast called him away for a few minutes, but he was soon back again, watching each detail of the scene as it unfolded before him, impatiently restless at the slow movement of the boat.

Finally the boat rounded a point and made directly across the broad sweeping bend of the river toward the opposite shore where a settlement of houses at the foot of the bluff had suddenly come into view.

"Well, here we are." He felt the grasp of the captain's hand upon his arm. "How d' you like the looks of your new home? You wait till you get on top of the hill, though. Natchez under the hill and on top is a mighty different place. I'm going to liven 'em up a bit this morning and let 'em know we're coming. If these folks didn't see a boat every now and then, they'd think they were dead, sure." He smiled good humouredly as a shrill whistle floated across the water from the town. "Bless me, if they ain't got that saw mill to working—the first one between here and New 'leans, I reckon. Just wait a minute, though, and I'll give 'em an answer. I told the fireman to stuff the engine plumb full of pitch pine—'that'll give us a powerful lot of black smoke—and when I turn loose oh the whistle, watch out!"

The boat drifted a little below the landing, then turning slowly, pushed its way steadily against the current. In the meantime the Captain had taken his position well forward where he could view the lower deck and direct the landing of the boat. "Hi there—you," followed by a collection of magnificent oaths as he found a negro going contrary to his directions. "Get out there to that capstan—man the bars—now—all together—easy," ending with more eloquent oaths as the heavy coils of rope were thrown to the shore, and the stage planks shoved into place.

The young traveller stood staring down into the throng of upturned faces, realizing that out of all the number there was not one he had seen before or from whom he could claim a welcome. There were bronzed faced woodsmen, there were the old residents, paler by contrast, and as enthusiastic in their welcome of a boat that brought them newspapers and tidings of the world, as children expecting a new toy; there were the black shining faces of the negroes who lounged on the cotton bales lining the banks; there were Indians in their bright blankets and feathers; here and there were dark skinned Spaniards; indeed it would have been difficult to find a nationality that was not represented in Natchez in those days.

Back of this oddly assorted throng extended high piles of cotton bales waiting to be transported to New Orleans, and beyond these a few houses and stores, after which the hill rose abruptly with a winding road climbing to the summit. At the top, wide spreading trees cut off any view of the upper town.

"Good luck to you, my boy," the old Captain said, slipping his arm through the young fellow's as they passed down the stage plank. "I'm counting on hearing big things of you one of these days, and I hate to be disappointed. Don't you forget my advice, and remember—if you're ever in a tight fix or mixed up in some sorter trouble, you know where to come."

"Thank you, Captain," the young fellow answered, his hand tightening in its hold upon the big rough one. To find such honest hearty friendship beaming upon him from the old weather worn face made him regret more keenly their parting. "But if I take your advice I'm afraid I'll need your help sooner than you think."

The Captain gave way to one of his sudden bursts of noisy laughter. "Never you mind that—lad," he said with a chuckle. "What I told you was downright common horse sense. I'll see you some of these days again, and I've a sneaking notion it won't be so far off." He turned away hurriedly and had soon disappeared in the crowd of negroes that were unloading the boat.

The young fellow stepped ashore and was taken possession of by a negro with a beaming face, who shouldered his trunk and carpet bag without any consultation whatever, and led the way toward a nameless vehicle