Janice ran the car on for half a block before she stopped. She looked back. She had never approved of fisticuffs—and Marty was prone to such disgraceful activities. Nevertheless, when she saw Sim Howell's blood-besmeared countenance, his wide-open mouth, his clumsy fists pawing the air almost blindly, something primal—instinctive—made her heart leap in her bosom.

She delighted in Marty's clean blows, in his quick "duck" and "side-step;" and when her cousin's freckled fist impinged upon the fatuous countenance of Sim Howell, Janice Day uttered an unholy gasp of delight.

She saw Nelson striding to separate the combatants. She hoped he would not be harsh with Marty.

Then, seeing the neighbors gathering, she pressed the starter button and the Kremlin glided on again. The tall young schoolmaster was between the two boys, holding each off at arm's length, when Janice wheeled around the far corner and gave a last glance at the field of combat.

"I am getting to be a wicked, wicked girl!" she accused herself, when she was well out of town and wheeling cheerfully over the Lower Road toward Middletown. "I have just longed to see that Simeon Howell properly punished ever since I caught him that day mocking Jim Narnay. And that arises from the influence of Lem Parraday's bar. Oh, dear me! I am affected by the general epidemic, I believe.

"If the Inn did not sell liquor, in all human probability, Narnay would not have been drunk that day; at least, not where I could see him. And so Sim and those other young rascals would not have chased and mocked him. I would not have felt so angry with Sim—Dear me! everything dovetails together, Nelson's trouble and all. I wonder if, after all, the selling of liquor at the Inn isn't at the bottom of Nelson's trouble.

"It sounds foolish—or at least, far-fetched. But it may be so.
Perhaps the person who stole those coins was inspired to do the wicked
deed because he was under the influence of liquor. And, of course, the
Lake View Inn was the nearest place where liquor was to be bought.

"Dear me! Am I foolish? Who knows?" Janice concluded, with a sigh.

The thought of Sim Howell mocking Jim Narnay reminded her of the latter's unfortunate family. She had been only once to the little cottage near Pine Cove since Narnay had gone into the woods with Trimmins and Jack Besmith.

Nor had she been able to see Dr. Poole, amid her multitudinous duties, and ask him how the nameless little baby was getting on; although she had at once left a note at the doctor's office asking him to call and see the child at her expense.

The peril threatening her father and the peril threatening Nelson Haley filled Janice Day's mind and heart so full that other interests had been rather lost sight of during the past eventful week.

She had not seen Frank Bowman since the time they had separated on the street corner by the drug store, late Saturday night, when she had taken Hopewell Drugg home.

Bowman was with his railroad construction gang not far off the Lower
Middletown Road. But Janice had been going to and from school by the
Upper Road, past Elder Concannon's place, because it was dryer.

This morning, however, Frank heard her car coming, and he appeared, plunging through the jungle, shouting to her to stop. He could scarcely make a mistake in hailing the car, for Janice's automobile was almost the only one that ran on this road. By summer time, however, the boarding house people and Lem Parraday hoped that automobiles in Polktown would be, in the words of Walky Dexter, "as thick as fleas on a yaller hound."

Janice saw Frank Bowman coming, if she did not hear him call, and slowed down. He strode crashingly down the hillside in his high boots, corduroys, and canvas jacket, his face flushed with exercise and, of course, broadly smiling. Janice liked the civil engineer immensely. He lacked Nelson Haley's solid character and thoughtfulness; but he always had a fund of enthusiasm on tap.

"How goes the battle, Janice?" was his cheery call, as he leaped down into the roadway and thrust out a gloved hand to grasp hers.

"I guess, by now, Simmy Howell has learned a thing or two," she declared, her mind on the scrimmage she had just seen.

"What?" demanded Bowman, wonderingly.

At that Janice burst into a laugh. "Oh! I am a perfect heathen. I suppose you did not mean Marty's battle with his schoolmate. But that was in my mind."

"What's Marty fighting about now?" asked the civil engineer, with a puzzled smile. "And are you interested in such sparring encounters?"

"I was in this one," confessed Janice. Then she told him of the occurrence—and its cause, of course.

"Well, I declare!" said Frank Bowman, happily. "For once I fully approve of Marty."

"Do you? Well, to tell the truth, so do I!" gasped Janice, laughing again. "But I know it is wicked."

"Guess the whole Day family feels friendly toward Nelson," declared the engineer. "I hear Mr. Day went on Nelson's bond Saturday night."

"Yes, indeed. Dear Uncle Jason! He's slow, but he's dependable."

"Well, I am glad Nelson Haley has some friends," Bowman said quickly.
"But I didn't stop you to say just this."

"No?"

"No," said the civil engineer. "When I asked you, 'How goes the battle?' I was thinking of something you said the other night when we were rounding up that disgraceful old reprobate, Hopewell Drugg," and he laughed.

"Oh, poor Hopewell! Isn't it a shame the way they talk about him?"

"It certainly is," agreed Frank Bowman. "But whether Hopewell Drugg is finally injured in character by Lem Parraday's bar or not, enough other people are being injured. You said you'd do anything to see it closed."

"I would," cried Janice. "At least, anything I could do."

"By jove! so would I!" exclaimed Frank Bowman, vigorously. "It was pay night for my men last Saturday night. One third of them have not shown up this morning, and half of those that have are not fit for work. I've got a reputation to make here. If this drunkenness goes on I'll have a fat chance of making good with the Board of Directors of the railroad."

"How about making good with that pretty daughter of Vice President
Harrison's?" asked Janice, slily.

Bowman blushed and laughed. "Oh! she's kind. She'll understand. But
I can't take the same excuses for failure to a Board of Directors."

"Of course not," laughed Janice. "A mere Board of Directors hasn't half the sense of a lovely girl—nor half the judgment."

"You're right!" cried Bowman, seriously. "However, to get back to my men. They've got to put the brake on this drinking stuff, or I'll never get the job done. As long as the drink is right here handy in Polktown, I'm afraid many of the poor fellows will go on a spree every pay day."

"It is too bad," ventured Janice, warmly.

"I guess it is! For them and me, too!" said Bowman, shaking his head. "Do you know, these fellows don't want to drink? And they wouldn't drink if there was anything else for them to do when they have money in their pockets. Let me tell you, Janice," he added earnestly, "I believe that if these fellows had it to vote on right now, they'd vote 'no license' for Polktown—yes, ma'am!"

"Oh! I wish we could all vote on it," cried Janice. "I am sure more people in Polktown would like to see the bar done away with, than desire to have it continued."

"I guess you're right!" agreed Bowman.

"But, of course, we 'female women,' as Walky calls us, can't vote."

"There are enough men to put it down," said Bowman, quickly. "And it can come to a vote in Town Meeting next September, if it's worked up right."

"Oh, Frank! Can we do that?"

"Now you've said it!" crowed the engineer. "That's what I meant when I wondered if you had begun your campaign."

"My campaign?" repeated Janice, much flurried.

"Why, yes. You intimated the other night that you wanted the bar closed, and Walky has told all over town that you're 'due to stir things up,' as he expresses it, about this dram selling."

"Oh, dear!" groaned Janice, in no mock alarm. "My fatal reputation!
If my friends really loved me they would not talk about me so."

"I'm afraid there is some consternation under Walky's talk," said Bowman, seriously. "He likes a dram himself and would be sorry to see the bar chased out of Polktown. I hope you can do it, Janice."

"Me—me, Frank Bowman! You are just as bad as any of them. Putting it all on my shoulders."

"The time is ripe," went on the engineer, seriously. "You won't be alone in this. Lots of people in the town see the evil flowing from the bar. Mrs. Thread tells me her brother would never have lost his job with Massey if it hadn't been for Lem Parraday's rum selling."

"Do you mean Jack Besmith?" cried Janice, startled.

"That's the chap. Mrs. Thread is a decent little woman, and poor Benny is harmless enough. But she is worried to death about her brother."

Janice, remembering the condition of the ex-drug clerk when he left Polktown for the woods, said heartily: "I should think she would be worried."

"She tells me he tried to get back his job with Massey on Friday night—the evening before he went off with Trimmins and Narnay. But I expect he'd got Mr. Massey pretty well disgusted. At any rate, the druggist turned him down, and turned him down hard."

"Poor fellow!" sighed Janice.

"I don't know. Oh, I suppose he's to be pitied," said Frank Bowman, with some disgust. "Anyhow, Besmith got thoroughly desperate, went down to the Inn after his interview with his former employer, and spent all the money he had over Lem's bar. He didn't come home at all that night——"

"Oh!" exclaimed Janice, remembering suddenly where Jack Besmith had probably slept off his debauch, for she had seen him asleep in her uncle's sheepfold on that particular Saturday morning.

"He's a pretty poor specimen, I suppose," said the engineer, eyeing Janice rather curiously. "He's one of the weak ones. But there are others!"

Janice was silent for a moment. Indeed, she was not following closely Bowman's remarks. She was thinking of Jack Besmith. Mr. Massey had evidently been much annoyed by his discharged clerk.

When she and Frank Bowman, with Hopewell Drugg, had gone to the druggist's back door that eventful Saturday night, Massey had thought it was Jack Besmith summoning him to the door. Massey had spoken Besmith's name when he first opened the door and peered out into the mist.

"Now, Janice," she suddenly heard Frank Bowman say, "what shall we do?"

She awoke to the subject under discussion with a start. "Goodness! do you really expect me to tell you?"

"Why—why, you see, Janice, you've got ideas. You always do have," said the civil engineer, humbly. "I've talked to such of my men as have come back to work this morning. Of course, they have been off before, on pay day; but this is the worst. They had a big time down there at the Inn Saturday night and Sunday morning."

"Poor Mrs. Parraday!" sighed Janice.

"You're right. I'm sorry for Marm Parraday. She's the salt of the earth. But there are more than Marm Parraday suffering through Lem's selling whiskey. But about my boys," added the engineer. "They tell me if the stuff wasn't so handy they would finish the job without going on these sprees. And I believe they would."

"Well! I'll think about it," Janice rejoined, preparing to start her car. "I suppose if I don't go ahead in the matter, the railroad will never get its branch road built into Polktown?" and she laughed.

"That's about the size of it!" cried Bowman, as the wheels began to roll.

But it was of Jack Besmith, the ex-drug clerk, that Janice Day thought as she sped on toward the seminary and not of the opening of the campaign against the liquor traffic in Polktown, which she felt had really been organized on this morning.

In some way the ne'er-do-well was connected in her mind with another train of thought that, until now, had had "the right of way" in her inner consciousness. What had Jack Besmith to do with Nelson Haley's troubles?

Janice Day was puzzled.