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"Sim Pratt!" cried Beatrice, who possessed him.

"Have you heard about it?" cried the clerk.

"Oh, yes, isn't it wonderful!" repeated Beatrice.

"I come over to tell you what they're doin' in Irontown," grinned Pratt.

"What?"

"Holding a community prayer meeting asking for their bank back from Railroad Jones!"

The women stared at the drug clerk.

"Imagine! Prayin' for their bank back!" "Ain't that Arntown!"

And suddenly everyone broke into irrepressible laughter.

"Tim Fraley told me about it," went on Pratt. "Bascom had Tim arrested for shootin' Abner. They brought him in the drug store for me to doctor his eye. Abner pretty near put one eye out. Tim was laughing about the prayer meetin'."

"Now, look here," sobered Mrs. Sandage, "it does sound funny, but I'd rather not have them people down there prayin' agin Jim an' Mr. Jones."

"They can't reverse a court decision by prayin'," laughed Mr. Pratt.

"They can't wriggle out of the debts I bought up against the bank," asserted Adelaide. "Goodness, I was running over there in my auto, twice a day sometimes, seeing anybody who ever owed the bank anything. Daddy got the list from one of the clerks there in the bank."

"Did you know what he was going to do with it?" laughed Pratt.

"Of course I did."

"Anyway, I don't like 'em prayin' against Jim and Mr. Jones," repeated Mrs. Sandage, troubled by the superstition of the hills.

After Pratt and the two girls went out in the car again, Mrs. Sandage's fears were redoubled by the news of the Irontown prayer meeting. She went about her housekeeping in Aline's absence with wrought-up nerves. At every sound