"When you come to finding something to like in that rat, I surrender." "Who knows ?" said the boy, as if to himself.

"Poor Hayes.

He may be quite a wonderful man, considering all things, his heredity and his environment.

What would I have been, dad, but for you ?" His father grunted, pulled hard at his pipe, coughed a bit, then looked his son straight in the face, saying, "God knows what any of us owe to our past." He fell into silence.

His mind was far away, following his heart to the palisaded plot of ground among the Foothills and the little grave there in which he had covered from his sight her that had been the inspiration to his best and finest things, and his defence against the things low and base that had once hounded his soul, howling hard upon his trail.
The son, knowing his mood, sat in silence with him, then rising suddenly he sat himself on the arm of his father's chair, threw his arm around his shoulder and said, "Dear old dad! Good old boy you are, too.