The boyish voice trailed off into silence as the receiver fell with a

crash to the polished desk, and Billy slipped off the chair and lay in

a huddled heap on the costly rug.

"Oh, mercy!" cried the lady, "Is he drunk or what?"

"Come away Sarah, let Morris deal--"

"But he's sick, I believe, William. Look how white he is. I believe he

is dead! William, he may have come a long way in the heat! He may have

had a sunstroke! Morris, send for a doctor quick! And--call the

ambulance too! You better telephone the hospital. We can't have him

here! William, look here, what's this on his sleeve? Blood? Oh,

William! And we didn't give him any reward--!"

And so, while the days hastened on Billy lay between clean white sheets

on a bed of pain in a private ward of a wonderful Memorial Hospital put

up by the Shaftons in honor of a child that died. Tossing and moaning,

and dreaming of unquenchable fire, always trying to climb out of the

hot crater that held him, and never getting quite to the top, always

knowing there was something he must do, yet never quite finding out

what it was. And back in Sabbath Valley Aunt Saxon prayed and cried and

waited and took heart of cheer from the message the Chief had sent to

Lynn. And quietly the day approached for the trial of Mark Carter, but

his mother did not yet know.




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