Page:Steadfast Heart.djvu/322

 a hero, a greater hero than he who risks life to save life. He had hazarded death—according to some stories—to save their money. They were grateful, hysterically, absurdly grateful. Had Angus appeared, it would have taken but the suggestion to set the crowd to cheering for him…. But Angus did not appear.

“I never was one of them that held ag’in Angus,” said Druggist Ramsay righteously.

“Wa-al, I admit,” said Butcher Pratt, “that I was kind of skeptical of him, but from the first I says to my wife, says I, ‘The’s good in that boy if it kin be fetched out.’ Them was my i-dentical words…. And it’s been fetched out, by Dad!”

“Crane’s doin’s,” said another. “He was allus pursuin’ and henderin’ the boy, and keepin’ public opinion het up. Wa-al, the boy was too much fer him in the end of it…. I never set much store by Crane anyhow….”

And so it went. Angus Burke…. Angus Burke…. On the street, at the dinner table, in church, everywhere, his name flew back and forth, a conversational shuttlecock, and with every rebound the legend of it expanded and magnified, and through constant polishing grew the brighter. In that day he dominated Rainbow. The people rubbed their eyes, opened them in surprise to find Angus an imposing figure, full-developed, lacking in nothing. From