It was strange to Ruth that she should long to go up to him and touch his smooth black hair, yet such a crazy fancy did flit through her brain. When she thought that he was suffering because of her, she had not been moved; but now that he was so sorely straitened for a man who was nothing to him more than a human creature, her heart ached to comfort him. “No,” said Amos; “we’ve got to work the other strings. I’ve got some pull, and I’ll work that; then the newspaper boys have helped me out, and folks are getting sorry for Sol; there wouldn’t be any clamor against it, and we’ve got some evidence. I’m not worth shucks as a talker, but I’ll take a talker with me. If there was only somebody to keep her straight—” “Would you trust me?” said Ruth. “If you will, I’ll go with her to-morrow.” Amos’s eyes went from his mother’s picture to the woman with the pale face and the lustrous eyes beneath it. He felt as stirred by love and reverence and the longing to worship as ever mediæval knight; he wanted to kneel and kiss the hem of her gown; what he did do was to open his mouth, gasp once or twice, and finally say, “Ruth, you—you are as good as they make ’em!” * * * * * Amos went, and the instant that he was gone, Ruth, attending to her own scheme of salvation, crossed the river. She entered the office of the steel-works, where the officers gave her full information about the character of Sol Joscelyn. He was a good fellow and a good workman, always ready to work an extra turn to help a fellow-workman. She went to his landlady, who was Elly’s mother, and heard of his sober and blameless life. “And indeed, miss, I know of a certainty he never did git drunk but once before, and that was after his mother’s funeral; and she was bedfast for ten years, and he kep’ her like a lady, with a hired girl, he did; and he come home to the dark house, and he couldn’t bear it, and went back to the boys, and they, meaning well, but foolish, like boys, told him to forget the grief.” Ruth went back to Sol’s mill, between heats, to seek Sol’s young friend. She found the “real nice little boy” with a huge quid in his cheek, and his fists going before the face of another small lad who had “told the roller lies.” He cocked a shrewd and unchildish blue eye at Ruth, and skilfully sent his quid after the flying tale-bearer. “Sol Joscelyn? Course I know him. He’s a friend of mine. Give me coffee outer his pail first day I got here; lets me take his tongs. I’m goin’ to be a rougher too, you bet; I’m a-learnin’. He’s the daisiest rougher, he is. It’s _grand_ to see him ketch them white-hot bars that’s jest a-drippin’, and chuck ’em under like they was kindling-wood. He’s licked my old man, too, for haulin’ me round by the ear. He ain’t my own father, so I didn’t interfere. Say, you goin’ to see Sol to-night? You can give him things, can’t you? I got a mince-pie for him.”