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WHEN Mr. Ditmas caught up with Abner, he explained to the youth that he had suggested a delay of the sale to the bank until the exact title Abner possessed could be ascertained. Abner agreed that this was good business but said the sight of so much money nearly had him going.

"I want you to feel," explained Mr. Ditmas carefully, "that I am not criticizing Mr. Northcutt or Mr. Sharp, but you were entering the sale in the spirit of a gamble, and it struck me that you were not in a financial position to indulge in that sort of thing."

Abner glanced at the engineer and listened to his sharply cut Northern sentences with a recurrence of that chronic suspicion with which all hill folk regard outlanders.

"Do you board here in town?" pursued Mr. Ditmas interestedly.

"Yes, sir," drawled Abner.

"Where?"

"At the Scovell House."

"What will you do to-morrow?"

"I—dunno," hesitated Abner, who nevertheless had a fair idea of the alternatives which would occupy him Sunday.

"I was thinking," went on Mr. Ditmas with his interested and helpful air, "that we might get up a game of baseball for to-morrow afternoon. We have plenty of men to make two teams, or even four or six. I don't see why we shouldn't get together a railroad league and play for a pennant this summer; it would be a lot of fun." Mr. Ditmas's voice warmed with the interest of an outdoor man in games.

Abner stared at the engineer. "Play on Sunday!"