"I won't cut it out!" He all but gulped, cleared his throat, and went on: "I owe you my thanks and an apology. Only yesterday I got weak-kneed because I hadn't heard from up there, and told Renfro and some others who wanted to know about the bid that I had done wrong to listen to as young a man as you are. I said that, and even talked to my wife about it the same way, and now we all see you was right. John, I don't intend to let you keep on at your old wages. You are not getting enough by a long shot, and from now on I'll give you a third more. I'm going to make some money out of this deal and you deserve something for what you have done." John looked pleased. "Oh, I'll take the raise, all right," he said, with one of his rare smiles. "I can find a use for the money." "Say, John"--Cavanaugh pressed his arm affectionately--"this will be our first jaunt away any distance together. We can have a lot o' fun. I'm going to order me a new suit of clothes, and I am going to make you a present of one, too. You needn't kick," as John drew back suddenly, "it will be powerful small pay for all the figuring you did at night when you was plumb fagged out." "Well, I'll take the suit, too," John said, and smiled again. "You are liberal, Sam, but you always was that way." "Well, we'll go to the tailor shop together at noon," Cavanaugh said, delightedly. "You can help me pick out mine and I'll see that Parker fits you. You have got some shape to you, my boy, and you will cut a shine up there." Leaving his employer, John ascended to the roof again, this time through the interior of the almost finished house, and out by a dormer window. The old town stretched out beneath him. To the east the hills and mountains rose majestically in their blue and green robe under the mellow rays of the sun. A fresh breeze fanned John's face. A man near him broke a slate by an unskilful stroke of the hammer and raised an abashed glance to John. "It is all right, Tim," he said. "I'm no good at slating myself. You are doing pretty well for a new hand. Say, Sam's landed that court-house contract." The nailers and their assistants had heard. The hammers ceased their clatter. Cavanaugh was seen standing in the middle of the road, looking up at them. A man raised a cheer. Hats and hammers were waved and three resounding cheers rang out. Cavanaugh took off his straw hat and stood bowing, smiling, and waving. "Lucky old duck!" Tim, who was a white man, said, "and he was afraid it would fall through." John's glance roved over the town, the only spot he had ever known. Beyond the outskirts ran the creeks in which he had fished and bathed as a ragged boy. Toward the south rose the graveyard a mile away. He could see the dim roof of the ramshackle house in which he had lived since he was five years of age. John looked at his watch.