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a garden. He struck the ground with the wild goose of fear still winging through his heart. He dashed ahead, clambered a fence on the opposite side of the garden, landed in a vacant lot, ran again, came to another fence. As he mounted this he saw ahead of him a twinkling procession of lights. It was the churchgoers on their way home.

A plan to give his pursuers the slip popped into Abner’s head. The next moment he leaped off the fence and went legging it toward the twinkling line of lights. He meant to lose himself in the procession. He went as hard as he could run to within forty or fifty yards of the line, then slackened his pace and tried to control his gasping breath before he merged himself with the others. As he approached one or two flashlights turned on him, but as they did so he stooped as if he were picking up his hat which had somehow blown off in the windless night—that was the trick he had thought of—then he entered the line.

Everybody was talking about the hill billies who had broken up the meeting. Abner moved up the line, passing the marchers uneasily. He felt conspicuous. The angry talk disturbed him. He gained on the line, looking anxiously for a place in it where he could become a unit in the ranks. Now and then he looked behind him for a pursuing flashlight, but there were so many now, it was impossible to tell anything about them. Any of those lights might be an officer. Just then he saw a gap in the procession. A woman, or a girl, was walking alone. The manner in which she walked suggested it was a girl. Had it been a woman Abner could have stepped in beside her simply enough, but a girl was different. However, with a great effort the wild disturber of public worship took his heart in his hands and moved into place beside the young woman, and thus became entirely merged with the home-goers.

No sooner was he in place than he began speculating on how he could get out inconspicuously. It would be noticeable for a man simply to desert his girl companion when he came to the hotel. He thought of saying, "Well, so long.