CHAPTER I

Lakeside was a pleasant little town of five or six thousand inhabitants,
and a rather pretty one, too, as towns go in the Far West.
It had church accommodations for thirty-five thousand, which is
the way of the Far West and the South, wherever everybody is religious,
and wherever each of the Protestant sects is delineated and has a plant
of its own. Rating was unknown in Lakeside--unconfessed, anyway;
everybody knew everybody and his dog, and a sociable friendliness
was the prevailing atmosphere.

Saladin Foster was book-keeper in the principal store, and the only
high-salaried man of his profession in Lakeside. He was thirty-five
years old, now; he had served that store for fourteen years;
he had begun in his marriage-