statement was half an argument; and his sincerity and the occasional epigram did the rest.

Mr. Reed left public life, which he loved, for the sake of the interests of home and family that were so much dearer to him, for his devotion to these was without stint or flaw. His private life, in all its relations, was as blameless as his public career was honorable. And thus he lived and died, a man who had incurred the passing animosities of some of his fellows, because of his imperious will, but one whom calumny could not touch, whom envy could not belittle, whom fame and flattery could not sway, nor money buy or bend.

Shocking as was the sudden taking off of one who had been to the country and to his life-long friends what Tom Reed had been, there remains to the living the gratification

of remembering him to the last in the full strength of his manhood. How keen this loss was felt to be, and how vividly he was remembered by the great public, has been shown on every hand; not the least of the honors to his memory being the action of Congress in adjourning on the day his body was borne away from the Capitol, an honor only twice bestowed on like occasions, these being the deaths of Clay and Blaine.

Such a loss not only brings anew before us the tremendous mystery of existence here, but it seems to open a little wider than common the gate of that other sphere, and we try to catch something of the vision that lies beyond, and to gain some further and fuller meaning and measure of that richest of all God's gifts to earth; the brave, strong, helpful, human life.

ACK WILLOUGHBY stood on the verandah outside his door, and looked straight in front of him, with an air of contented proprietorship. The prospect was well worth looking at, and from the boards of the verandah beneath his feet to the sharp line of frontier bush two miles away, it was all his own, and the successful work of his hands.

The mysterious languid beauty of the Indian summer lay upon it all; upon the little patch of fenced garden, upon the open space where the fowls pecked and clucked round the diminished wood pile, upon the half circle of buildings-stable, granary, and wagon house-upon the golden stubble of his gathered crop gilding the broad prairie beyond.

The great arch of sky was clear, but over the distant line of trees, directly in Willoughby's line of vision, there hung one soft greyish cloud. As his eye rested upon it, it broke suddenly, and a second puffed up below it; and Willoughby turned his head towards the open door behind him.

"Another bush fire, Kitty," he said. "That's the third this week. There must be some tinder knocking about there. I guess I'd better plough up the stubble round the farm to-morrow."

"I dare say," answered his wife listlessly, and Willoughby frowned. Surely, after only four months of

marriage, it was soon to be listless. He stood still for a moment, then shook his shoulders impatiently, and went into the kitchen.

"I'll have to go into town to see Nelson about those steers," he announced rather shortly. "I can be out again by supper time."

His wife was standing by the table, kneading a great mass of dough. She was very young, very pretty, and very tired. Her face was hard, but her eyes were full of tears, as she answered quickly

"Oh, stay and have supper with Nelson!-and talk about steers all evening. He may not be as weary of them as I am!"

Her husband turned and looked at her, and saw the hard lines that matched the hard voice; but the tear-dimmed eyes were lowered, and he did not see them. It did not strike him that he failed to understand the tired girl who wanted more than details of the farm to flavour her days of work. He loved her so dearly and unquestionably that he never realized that few women can take a man's love for granted, especially when that love. is all that makes long days of drudgery worth the doing. He forgot that Kitty was only twenty, and that her summer of labour had not, like his, been lived in the broad sunshine, but in the unkinder heat of a stifling kitchen. He only knew that he did not mean to quarrel, so he

said, "I'll be home by seven, anyway, whether you want me or not," and went out to put the horse in.

He thought he was wise in leaving Kitty to get over it, and the fact that it gave him a very bad heartache, did not have the effect of making him any wiser. He drove off with the frown which so often accompanies the ache, and gave his willing little mare a strenuous hour of it. And the only thing in life that was at all clear to him was the belief that Kitty was tired of the farm and of him.

The town trail led straight away from the back of the house due north for eight lonely miles, his own farm being the most outlying in the district. He drove the whole way without a backward look, found Nelson, settled the business of the steers, and was conscious all the time of Kitty's sweet face with the new hard lines upon it. It had been such a soft little face when he had kissed it first.

He stood in one of the stores with some other men, and tried to display his usual interest in the threshing results, and the price of corn, while his mind slowly grasped the fact that he had been a fool to leave Kitty until he had learned conclusively whether she still loved him or not. It dawned upon him clearly that the steers did not matter.

He was trying to listen to the drawled opinion of a veteran upon the year's harvest, when a man standing near the doorway broke in on the important utterance.

"Here's Tom Bryan coming along the sidewalk 's if he was a day or two late. What's hunting you,

when the second deluge comes along," he said politely. "There's a big fire down south and-Good Lord, Jack, is that you? Come here, man!"

He caught Willoughby's arm and dragged him out and along the sidewalk to a corner of the street from which they could see the long lines. of the prairie rolling away southward. The sun was near its setting, and the sky was splendid with its glories, but the fiery glow marked more than the red track of the sun. A line

line of of angry, flame-pierced smoke leaped and flickered along the southern horizon; the bush fire had broken loose upon the sun-dried prairie, and Willoughby's farm lay right in its track.

In two minutes the town and its noisy voices were left behind, and the buggy whirling along the familiar home trail. Young Bryan swung himself in as it started, and presently he put Willoughby's thoughts into words.

"There's only the plough team on the farm, isn't there?" he asked, and,

as

Willoughby nodded without speaking "That's all right. She could not get off on one of them. We'll meet her, I guess. Wasn't there any sign of it when you left?"

"A puff of smoke in the bush; there has been some nearly every day for a week. I meant to have ploughed up an acre or two to-mor

row."

Tom?"

Bryan stopped breathless at the store door and looked in.

With voice and whip Willoughby urged on the brave mare, and the hoof beats grew thunderous in his ears. He spoke no more during that mad hour, and soon young Bryan ceased his efforts at consolation. For there was no sign of the team or Kitty, even when they were so near that the little patch of farm buildings stood out black against the background of fire.

The

"It's not got round anyway," Bryan said under his breath, but Willoughby did not heed. reek of the smoke was in his eyes; the hideous crackling of the fire was magnified in his ears; he only tightened his grasp on the reins. Foam flecked from the mare's nostrils and her eyes grew wild, but the iron grip held her to the trail, and she dashed on into the far-reaching line of smoke. The sun was sombre and terrible behind the clouds of vapour, and the big outline of barn and stable rose black for a moment against a frightful curtain of lurid flame: then the smoke swept over buildings and homestead, burying all.

Willoughby brought the whip across the mare's streaming shoulders, and, quivering, she plunged forward. Suddenly the great billow of smoke parted, and beyond the buildings, a moving object was silhouetted sharply for a moment against the fire. Bryan sprang to his feet with a shout

"My God, God, Willoughby, she's ploughing! Oh, well done, well

done!"

The terrified mare swerved frantically, put her head down, and dashed into the heart of the stifling smoke, past the house and across to the stable, where the flying sparks were running to and fro amongst the loose straw by the door, whilst

the cattle were bellowing frantically in their corral. Willoughby flung the reins away, sprang out, and ran past the gable of the barn.

Stretching away from his feet, a hundred yards before him and to right and left, the ploughed ground lay dark and moist, circled by licking, baffled flames. Away to the right, half hidden by the smoke, Kitty drove the great ploughing team into the very face of the wall of fire. Blackened, scorched and blinded, she forced the maddened horses to their work by sheer force of desperate will and the power in her rigid aching arms. From her torn hands, round which the reins were twisted, the blood dropped slowly, but the swerving plunging horses were held to their furrow till the fire leaped in their red eyes and in the splashes of foam on their shoulders. She had not heard the buggy wheels through the roar of the flames and the deeper roaring in her ears: Willoughby was close beside her before she saw him.

"Kitty, Kitty, it's all right!" he cried. "You've done it, my darling!"-and she reeled sideways and fell into his outstretched arms.

He untwisted the reins, and the freed horses, with a frantic swerve, flung the gang-plough on its side, and, snorting with terror, dragged it into the farm-yard, where Bryan caught and held them.

"Lenox and Burnaby have come. over with Lenox's plough, they're working at the back!" he shouted, as Willoughby passed. And, with a sudden softening, apparent even in a voice calculated to drown the sounds of fire and terrified beasts,"Is-she hurt?"

Willoughby shook his head and went on. He carried her into the kitchen, where the cloth was laid