equally strange and dangerous shore. The town seethed. It had been
years since any local sensation approached this high moment.... At half
past six Pliny Pickett, Scattergood's right-hand man and general errand
boy, was seen to approach Homer on the street and to whisper to him.
Pliny always enshrouded his most matter-of-fact errands with voluminous
mystery. "Scattergood wants you sh'u'd see him right off," he said, and
tiptoed away.

Another sensation occurred that evening. Scattergood Baines went to
prayer meeting in the Methodist church. When word of this was passed
about, the Baptists and Congos deserted their places of worship in
whispering groups and invaded the rival edifice until it was crowded as
it had seldom been before. Scattergood in prayer meeting! Scattergood,
who had never been inside a church since the day of his arrival in
Coldriver, forty years before.... Even Yvette Hinchbrooke and her
affairs sank into insignificance.

But the amazing presence of Scattergood in church was as nothing to the
epochal fact that, after the prayer and hymn, he was seen slowly to get
to his feet. Scattergood Baines was going to lift up his voice in
meeting!

"Folks," he said, "I've knowed Coldriver for quite a spell. I've knowed
its good and its bad, but the good outweighs the bad by a darn sight."
The congregation gasped.

"I run on to a case to-day," he said, and then paused, apparently
thinking better of what he was going to say and taking another course.
"They's one great way to reach folks's hearts and that's through their
sympathy. All of you give up to furrin missions to rescue naked fellers