His eyes ashine with ancient memories, His blood aglow with subtle racial fire, For him are quenched the stirrings of desire. The pageant of the world has ceased to please; Hushed are the evening songs—the lutes of ease; In the war flame, that old ancestral pyre, He casts his hopes of home, wife, child or sire; Instinct of race, a passion more than these, The spirit of his country, holds him thrall; In him forgotten heroes, forbears, rise, Strengthening his heart to common sacrifice; Out of the darkness generations call And martyr hosts, that unrecorded fall, Salute him from the void with joyful cries. LONDON DAILY NEWS. _The Atonement of Hustler Joe_ (COMPLETE NOVELETTE) BY ELEANOR H. PORTER PROLOGUE A toy horse or a raspberry-tart is not often responsible for the loss of a life, but a succession of toy horses, raspberry-tarts, and whatever else the heart of a small boy craved, given in a reckless abandonment of superfluity, was certainly responsible for the wilfulness in the character of Paul Weston; and the wilfulness, in turn, was responsible for the quarrel. At twenty he was a restless, impulsive, good-hearted, broad-chested, strong-limbed young fellow, the adored of his mother and the pride of his father. And yet it was over the prostrate form of this same father that he now stood—the crack of the revolver still ringing in his ears, the weapon itself still clutched in his hand. Was the man dead? But a minute before he had been speaking; now there was a fast-growing pool of something dark and horrible on the floor at his side. Paul Weston brushed the back of his left hand across his eyes and looked down at the still smoking revolver. Had his miserable temper brought him to this? His features worked convulsively and his eyes widened in horror. Throwing the revolver from him to the farthermost corner of the room, he turned and fled. Out the door, through the gate, and down the long street of the little New England village he ran. It was dusk, but he stumbled as though it were the darkness of midnight. The neighbors looked and wondered at the fleeing figure, but only their eyes spoke disapproval. If Paul Weston chose to use the main street of the village as a race-course, it was not for them to interfere—they knew him too well. The town fool alone ventured to accost him. “Hi, there—go it! What’s after ye?” he shouted; but the jeering words and the vacant smile died on his lips at sight of the face Paul turned upon him.