The town had met death. But no one even in that place of mourning could answer the question that the child heard in the bells. And yet that divine spark of heroism that burns unseen in every heart however high, however low--that must be the faltering, uncertain light which points us to the truth across the veil through the mists made by our useless tears. And thus a New Year in Harvey began its long trip around the sun, with its sorrows and its joys, with its merry pantomime and its mutes mourning upon the hearse, with its freight of cares and compensations and its sad ironies. So let us get on and ride and enjoy the journey. CHAPTER XVII A CHAPTER WHICH INTRODUCES SOME POSSIBLE GODS When Grant Adams had told and retold his story to the reporters and had eaten what Dr. Nesbit would let him eat, it was late in the afternoon. He lay down to sleep with the sun still shining through the shutters in his low-ceiled, west bed room. Through the night his father sat or slept fitfully beside him and when the morning sun was high, and still the young man slept on, the father guarded him, and would let no one enter the house. At noon Grant rose and dressed. He saw the Dexters coming down the road and he went to the door to welcome them. It seemed at first that the stupor of sleep was not entirely out of his brain. He was silent and had to be primed for details of his adventure. He sat down to eat, but when his meal was half finished, there came bursting out of his soul a flame of emotion, and he put down his food, turned half around from the table, grasped the edges of the board with both hands and cried as a fanatic who sees a vision: "Oh, those men,--those men--those wonderful, beautiful souls of men I saw!--those strong, fearless. Godlike men!--there in the mine, I mean. Evan Davis, Dick Bowman, Pat McCann, Jamey McPherson, Casper Herdicker, Chopini--all of them; yes, Dennis Hogan, drunk as he is sometimes, and Ira Dooley, who's been in jail for hold-ups--I don't care which one--those wonderful men, who risked their lives for others, and Casper Herdicker and Chopini, who gave their lives there under the rock for me. My God, my God!" His voice thrilled with emotion, and his arms trembled as his hands gripped the table. Those who heard him did not stop him, for they felt that from some uncovered spring in his being a section of personality was gushing forth that never had seen day. He turned quietly to the wondering child, took him from his chair and hugged him closely to a man's broad chest and stroked the boyish head as the man's blue eyes filled with tears. Grant sat for a moment looking at the floor, then roughed his red mane with his fingers and said slowly and more quietly, but contentiously: