finding himself free, his disordered thoughts gradually straightened themselves out. Then his heart sank with a poignant feeling of misery. Ah, fate again had dealt him a merciless blow! The kind woman who had taken him in would now be convinced of his worthlessness! He recalled everything-how he was to have helped her in her garden that morning-or was it twenty mornings ago! He felt old and stiff, like Rip Van Winkle, and, almost unconsciously, he felt his chin to see how long his beard had grown. Its stubby roughness reassured him; probably he had but slept the day! Wide awake now, he made his way out from the trees, the sky was ablaze with twinkling stars, and the night-sounds of nature fell on his ear. In the road he stood hesitating how to put in the night. To woo sleep again was impossible, he would go to the little, brown house and hold a grateful vigil, and so be on hand in the morning whatever hour she should come out. When he came within a short distance of the brown house, he saw and smelt smoke, then a tongue of flame lapped the calm sky, and "Shiftless Joe" broke into a run.

The fire was not far advanced as he ran around the house and started towards the woodshed. Two disheveled figures tumbled out of the door, and Joe recognized them as two of his companions in misery of the night before.

"This is your fault!" he shouted at them. "Follow me, we'll put the fire out-there's a lady inside!"

He took command like a general, the two tramps speechless, falling in behind. With a superhuman effort, "Shiftless Joe" broke in the kitchen door, and finding pails ordered the men to fill them and throw the water on the fire. He, himself, went to find Miss Luvall.

He had no trouble reaching her door on the second floor, and several loud knocks brought her, trembling, to open it. She put out a head made so much more youthful by the long braids of hair that Joe scarcely recognized her.

"Come!" he said quickly. "It's 'Shiftless Joe;' the house is on fire; throw something about you and trust to me!"

Uttering no sound she obeyed. Joe was coughing from the smoke when she reappeared in the doorway. He flung an arm about her and turned towards the stairs-they were cut off!

Miss Luvall saw the situation, and neither fainted nor screamed. "I think, Joe," she said gently, "that we will have to let ourselves down by a sheet from the window!"

Acting on her suggestion, she reentered her bedroom, Joe following, and catching the sheets from the bed, tore them with a sure hand, while "Shiftless Joe" knotted them firmly together. The room was filled with smoke as they finished, and the hungry crackle of the flames was like the crunching of bones by a terrible beast creeping behind them. Joe flung wide the window, and groped for something to which to fasten the end of the sheet. Nothing offered. Winding it quickly about his waist, he felt through the dense smoke for Miss Luvall. "Quick, get out, and hold on to the sheet, and slide down, I have it fastened!"

She followed his instructions without a murmur. "Come right after me, Joe!"

He made her no answer, a moment after his body swayed with the weight of the woman on the sheet. He could no longer see, his lungs were like fire, still he stood still while the moments stretched into years, and the flames crouched near him and savagely caught at his face and hands. Then he felt the sheet come loose, and knew that she must be safe. One moment more left in which to leap-if he could muster strength to do it. He could not wait to unfasten the sheet about him, so pulled in the other end and, fainting, wound it about his waist, then with a gasp, he made the sill, heard the maddened roaring of the flames behind him-and leaped.

The first thing he saw was daylight, and dreaming, he roused, and seemed

to doze away again times without number. At last, between scarcely opened, painful lids, he saw her face and smiled-cool drops as of rain fell on his cheek.

"Ah Joe!" she cried, "you're saved!" "Saved!" he murmured softly. "When did Will-" then in a vivid flash of memory, like lightning cleaving a black sky, he recalled it all. His eyes opened wider, and he saw he was lying on blankets on the grass in sight of the destroyed brown cottage.

"And you wound the sheet about yourself, and stayed there to let me down," tremulously whispered Miss Luvall pressing his hand lightly, but it made him wince, and looking down he saw both of them were bandaged. "I don't remember when I lit!" said "Shiftless Joe," ruminatingly.

Miss Luvall shuddered. "Can you stand being moved to the neighbor's, Joe?"

"Anything you wish!" he said quietly. A few moments later he clinched his teeth together in a fierce effort to suppress a shriek as he felt himself borne slowly, but oh, so painfully! it seemed miles, as he lay with eyes tightly closed; and at last layed down while every bone in his body felt broken. That was the last he knew for some time.

II.

It was several weeks later when "Shiftless Joe," sufficiently recovered to sit up, was looking out the window of the neighbor's, Miss Luvall at his side towards the ruins of the little, brown house. He saw for the first time that the neighbor's was, after all, but a few hundred feet distant.

Unceasing had been Miss Luvall these days in her ministrations, and ever and again she spoke to him about his having fastened the end of the sheet about himself to save her. "How good fate was to me, Joe," she said softly, "to bring you to my door that morning!" And "Shiftless Joe" so long discarded by mankind, turned his head abruptly away that she might

not see the grateful moisture in his dark eyes at her precious tribute.

"You'll begin to make me feel as if I amounted to something, Miss Luvall," he said, half banteringly. "I almost forget when I'm with you that my name's 'Shiftless Joe'!"

"Don't!" she said sharply, with pain in her voice. "I never want you to say that name again! You're JoeJoe-"

"Rogers," he supplied quietly. "Yes, I'm Joe Rogers to you-a man without a past!"

Miss Luvall looked quickly at his white face. Clean shaven, with his dark hair smoothed, he was an unusually handsome man, and her heart had taken to unruly beating at sight of him.

"Why are you so bitter?" she asked. impulsively.

His eyes met her's a moment then he glanced out of the window. "Have you forgotten the dog with a tin can tied to his tail?"

"Won't you tell me something!" she said, appealingly.

"Something!" he repeated. "It's a motley collection of memories I have to draw from! I was a tramp when you first saw me."

"No!" her quick frown manding. He raised his sight of it.

com

was brows at

"Well, at

"No!" he repeated again. any rate the Mayor of Bennettville had me chained to a tree with other offenders, at the outskirts of the town. the night before I passed the little, brown house! And two of those tramps tramps were responsible for your house burning. They had crept into the woodshed to sleep-had a stray cigar, I suppose!"

"But you weren't one of them!" she insisted.

"Shiftless Joe" seemed surprised at her intolerance. "I sha'n't ever be again!" he said, gently. "And yet," he continued, "a man who has lost his past can have no future! And any time you may regret harboring me! If I stay around here long enough, the law's long arm will gather

me in-it's what I've evaded for two years-by tramping!"

Miss Luvall listened, her sweet face white and pained. It was agony to hear such things from the lips of a man who in her eyes must ever remain a hero.

"What did you do to break the law?" she asked so low he scarcely caught her words.

A set look passed over his face, and the whole noble expression of the man changed to one dogged, sullen, and unforgiving. He made no immediate reply.

"At least," he said after a time, "I never misrepresented myself to youyou have seen me at the worst-at the very dregs of my existence, and you have found something in me to make you feel justified in helping me?" he asked, his melancholy eyes appealing of her's.

Miss Luvall swallowed hard, tears suddenly dimmed her eyes. "I wish, Joe, you wouldn't talk so, you make me feel as though I had seen the wreck of a fine ship! It can be raised, believe me!" she said, eagerly, laying her rather large, kind hand on his, still tender from the ravages of the flames.

"Perhaps!" he replied. "Perhaps." "I have a position for you as soon as you're well!" she said, brightly. "Mr. Renny has promised to give you a place in his bank."

"Shiftless Joe" straightened suddenly. "Bank-oh, no! He just said that to please you! Did you tell him I was a tramp?"

Miss Luvall's sensitive face colored, "Why won't you forget that, Joe?"

"Because that's the foundation I've got to build on!" he said grimly, "if I don't state that fact, after I've built up a few blocks, perhaps someone will come along and pull out the first labelled 'Shiftless Joe' and down will come my work. Oh, I've tried it times without number-it's one of the ironies of fate!"

"But, Joe, aren't you going to try and make something of yourself, yet?" Miss Luvall asked desperately.

"Yes, when restitution comes-if it ever does!" he replied dreamily.

It was only a few days after this conversation, as Joe was able to move about, doing odd jobs for Mrs. Renny, the kind neighbor who had taken Miss Luvall and him in after the fire, when a stranger came to the house asking for Joe. Miss Luvall met him on the porch, as she thought, out of hearing of "Shiftless Joe."

The stranger was small, thin, and wiry, with a high, dome-like forehead, and little ferrety eyes.

"Can I see a man by the name of Joe Shiftless Joe'?"

Miss Luvall's voice filled with indignation. "I'm sure there's no one of that name here!"

The man's ferrety eyes laughed, his mouth pulled uselessly against the tough muscles of his hollow cheeks. "Oh!" said he, "he's gotten beyond that name! Well, we'll not argy-I'm willing to let bygones be bygones. I want Joe Rogers, then; is he here? They told me he was at the brown house next door, but 'pears like the party ownin' that ain't at home jest at present!" A dry chuckle vibrated in

his throat.

"What do you want of Joe Rogers?" Miss Luvall asked, quickly. "He's not strong enough to see strangers yet. He was burned in that house next door while saving me!" and Miss Luvall's glance was intended to annihilate the stranger.

"Ah, I see, I see!" he observed, moistening his lips disagreeably. "He's been tryin' to make a hero of himself. Very creditable, I'm sure-very creditable for 'Shiftless Joe!' I beg your pardon, force of habit, you know. So I can't see him-well, it's rather important-guess I must! We've been hunting for him for two years, and I' don't believe I can let him go now, Miss! You see the Law don't forgit, even if some time elapses, and the culprit gits away!"

"What has he done?" broke in Miss Luvall, her cheeks faded white as bleached cloth.

The man narrowly observed her a

moment. "I guess it ain't necessary to confide in you too much; you ain't married to him, be you?"

The color rushed back into Miss Re

becca's face with a sickening heartthrob. "No," she said, quickly. "But you're not going to take him nowyou'll wait a few days, until he's stronger? Oh, he'll not try to get away from you-he's not that kind!" Miss Luvall's hazel eyes met those of the man before her challengingly.

Before he could answer, a step behind them, and a sudden appearance of Joe, white and narrow-eyed, startled them both. Miss Luvall gave a stifled exclamation, and involuntarily put out her hand to support him. Joe swayed slightly, but caught himself by the back of a porch-chair. One grateful, illuminating glance flamed from the depths of his dark eyes upon Miss Rebecca, then instantly died out.

"I'm ready!" he said, curtly. "But you'll have to get some sort of a rig to get me to the railroad station!"

He bade bood-bye quietly to Miss Luvall as she stood beside him on the steps as the rickety buggy drawn by a bony horse, and loaned by a neighbor, drove up. "I'm not sure that you will ever hear of me again," he said, "but I'm more grateful to you than I can tell you now! If anything had come in the way of restitution, it would have been through you!"

Miss Rebecca could not speak as she watched him go down the steps with moist, telling eyes. When the dust of the highway obscured the the buggy from her sight, she went into the house, and seeking the room she occupied, she bowed her head in grief as though for the death of some beautiful thing which should have lived.

III.

Joe took his capture quietly-the man who accompanied him to Bronxville would have said "gamely." He did no talking on the train, sitting white, and seemingly shrunken, with hands buried deep in his trousers

pockets, and his old, battered hat pulled well down over his eyes.

It was but a half day's ride on the train to the town where he had once lived, and from which he had been cast adrift two years before. And he studied the streets with compressed lips as he was driven from the depot to the jail. His thoughts were an anomaly even to himself, uppermost, though, was the feeling that at last, like a plummet, he had certainly reached bottom. There was a crude satisfaction in knowing that he had established a kind of "quits" with fate.

The Deputy-Sheriff beside him had long since ceased in his attempt to talk to him, he scarcely even watched. him, as he sat observing the scene with uninterested eyes, and thinking his own thoughts. Many years of dealing with offenders of the law had shown him that in the varying gauge of requirements made on him in conducting criminals to justice, this man beside him fitted into the brief description"game, and stay patt."

The carriage pulled up with a jerk before the large, stone building labelled "County Jail." Joe stepped eagerly out, he was anxious to have it over. Perhaps if he made up his mind to take all Fate wanted to give him, his lot would grow easier at any rate, he would try this last expedient.

In the office he was met by the Sheriff, a round, pleasant-faced man, who surprised him by holding out his hand. hand. "Shiftless Joe" did not appear to see it.

"I am glad to tell you, Mr. Rogers, that this little matter of your's has been settled since the Deputy-Sheriff here went after you. I can congratulate you on being a free man!"

The last part of the sentence affected Joe the least. It was the first part which startled him, and held him fascinated with fear.

"Settled!" he repeated. "By whom?" The Sheriff stood looking at him amazed, marveling at a man to whom liberty seemed to mean so little.

"That's a little matter I can't discuss

here, Mr. Rogers!" said he. "Any time when I can spare you a few moments alone, I shall be glad to talk to you! Deputy, show Mr. Rogers out!" Slowly Joe turned and went towards the door, the Deputy at his elbow smiling. At the entrance, he held out his hand. "I can't say 'come again!' very well," said he with an attempt at wit, "but I must say I wish all offenders were as easily captured, and gave me as little trouble! If I'd 've been in your shoes I wouldn't have been! The trouble with me would have been-" But Joe didn't wait to hear the rest of the interesting history, and reaching the street, turned his steps slowly to the north corner. Here he soon obtained a car which took him to the outskirts of the town.

How familiar, and yet how far removed from him appeared the large, stone house to be seen from the car, and, getting off, he made his way wonderingly to the door. If the affair had been settled, there was but one man who could have settled it, and that was his brother Will, President of the La Salle Bank at Bronxville! He had now come to seek that brother and get an explanation.

Upon giving his name at the door, he was ushered at once by a stiffnecked butler-for William Rogers lived in the seat of luxury-to his master's bedroom. At the threshold, he bent his arrogant head and said in at whisper, "Mr. Rogers, sir, has been, and still is very ill. The doctors give us no hope."

Shocked, hushed through his whole being, Joe went in the opened door, and without a glance at the elegance of the room, went straight to the fourposter, mahogany bed.

He scarcely recognized the sunken face on the pillow, and quietly took the thin hand which was at once held eagerly out to him.

"Joe!"

"Will," he replied gently.

"I'm about done for, Joe,-and I've done what I could to effect restitution. Oh, you'll never forgive me, I know!" he wailed, turning restlessly on his pil

lows. "This bed has been one of the damned! Somewhere 'way down through the tough fibers of my being, Joe, I had a heart-and it's tormenting the life out of me, now-and yet now, I should be at peace!" he said, more quietly.

"Don't talk now, Will!" "Shiftless Joe" replied, passing a restraining hand down over his brother's trembling arm.

"But I must-for I haven't long, Joe!"

"I have forgiven you, Will!" the younger brother said gently, bending over the bed.

"Sit down here!" urged the sick man, patting the covers beside him. "Just like you used to do when we were boys. Joe!" he gasped, in a sudden burst of tears. "She died!-My little Nellie died-the one for whom I was the lion in lamb's skin; and for whom I shouldered my crime on you, and sent you wandering over a scornful earth! But, oh Joe! my lot's been harder than your's! To have all the wealth and outward esteem in the world, and know you're guilty-is an inferno nothing can equal! Now you've had—”

The ignominy without the guilt!" supplied "Shiftless Joe" gravely. "And I wouldn't have written you that letter, Will, asking you to make me some reparation in the eyes of mankind-if I hadn't known that Nellie - was dead!" he said softly. "And that a woman had come into my life who had made me feel through her faith in me though she only saw me at the dregs-that my own soul required. something of me, regardless of my love for you!"

"I know, Joe-you were right!" and the bank president closed his eyes for a moment. "Will, I have done it," he said at last, "I have owned my guilt to the directors, exonerated you, and paid up the amount! Strange, Joe," he said, somewhat dreamily, "that everything prospered for which I used that accursed money-except you, and Nellie, and me! fate evened up on that! The directors were kind, said they would tell the court that the