THE TRAILS UNITE
So it was that Ned Lytton ceased to be and with his going went all
barriers that had existed between Ann and Bruce. Each had played a part
in the grim drama which ended with violence, yet to neither could any
echo of blame for Ned's death be attached. Their hands and hearts were
clean.
Ann's appeal to Bruce for help when Ned led her away from the ranch had
been made because she knew that real danger of some sort awaited Ned at
the Sunset mine; she had not considered herself or her own safety at
all.
Bruce, for his part, had concentrated his last energy on averting the
tragedy. He had looked for the moment on his love of Ann only as a
factor which had helped bring about the crisis, thereby making him
accountable. To play the game as he saw it, to be squared with his own
conscience, he had risked everything, even his life, in his attempt to
save Lytton.
Ned's true self had come to the surface just long enough to answer all
questions that might have been raised after his death. In that last
experience of his life he had risen above his cowardice. After hearing
Ann's warning scream, he must have known that to fire on Bayard the
second time meant his own death. Yet he was not dissuaded, just kept on
attempting to satiate his lust for the rancher's life. So, utterly
revealed, he died.
The fourth individual was to be considered--Benny Lynch. Through the
months that he had brooded over the injustice which sent his father to a
quick end, through the weeks that he had planned to administer his own
justice, through the straining days that he had waited to kill, a part
of him had been stifled. That part was the kindly, deliberate, peace
loving Benny, and so surely as he was slow to anger he would have lived
to find himself tortured by regret had he slain for revenge. As it was,
he shot to save the life of a friend ... and only that. He lived to
thank the scheme of things that had called on him to untangle the skein
which events had snarled about Bruce and the woman he loved ... for it
took from him the stain of killing for revenge.
Somehow, Bruce got Ann away from the Sunset mine that day. She was brave
and struggled to bear up, but after the strain of those last weeks the
fatigue of the ride Ned had forced her to take unnerved her and she was
like a child when they gained the Boyd ranch where she was taken to the
maternal arms of the mistress of that house, to be petted and cried over
and comforted.
In his rattling, jingling buckboard Judson Weyl drove out to the mining
camp and beside a rock-covered grave murmured a prayer for the soul
which had gone out from the body buried there; when he drove away, his
chin was higher, his face brighter, reflecting the thought within him
that an ugly past must be forgotten, that the future assured those
qualities which would make it forgettable.
News of the killing roused Yavapai. In the first hour the community's
attention was wholly absorbed in the actual affair at the mine, but, as
the story lost its first edge of interest, inquisitive minds commenced
to follow it backward, to trace out the steps which had led to the
tragedy.
Ann's true identity became known. The fact that Bayard had sheltered
Lytton was revealed. After that the gossip mongers insinuated and
speculated. No one had known what was going on; when men hide their
relationships with others and with women it must be necessary to hide
something, they argued.
And then the clergyman, waiting for this, came forward with his story.
He had known; his wife had known. Nora, the girl who had gone, had
known. No, there had been no deception in Bayard's attitude; merely
discretion. With that the talk ceased, for Yavapai looked up to its
clergy.
Within the fortnight Ann boarded a train bound for the East. Her face
had not regained its color, but the haunted look was gone from her eyes,
the tensity from about her lips. She was in a state of mental and
spiritual convalescence, with hope and happiness in sight to hasten the
process of healing. Going East for the purpose of explaining, of making
what amends she could for Ned's misdeeds, was an ordeal, but she
welcomed it for it was the last condition she deemed necessary to set
her free.
"It won't be long," she said, assuringly, when Bruce stood before her to
say farewell, forlorn and lonely looking already.
"It can't be too quick," he answered.
"Impatient?"
"I'd wait till 'th' stars grow old an' th' sun grows cold'" he quoted
with his slow smile, "but ... it wouldn't be a pleasant occupation."
She looked at him earnestly.
"You might; you could," she whispered, "but _I_ wouldn't wait ... that
long...."
* * * * *
Weeks had passed and October was offering its last glorious days. Not
with madly colored leaves and lazy hazes of Indian summer that are gifts
to men in the hardwood belt, but with the golden light, the infinite
distances, the super silence which comes alone to Northern Arizona. The
green was gone from grasses and those trees which drop their foliage
were clothed only in the withered remains of leaves, but color of
incredible variety was there--the mauves, the lavendars, the blues and
purples and ochres of rock and soil, changing with the swinging sun,
becoming bold and vivid or only a tint and modest as the light rays
played across the valley from various angles. The air, made crystal by
the crisp nights, brought within the eyes' register ranges and peaks
that were of astonishing distance. The wind was most gentle, coming in
leisurely breaths and between its sighs the silence was immaculate,
ravished by no jar or hum; even the birds were subdued before it.
On a typical October morning, before the sun had shoved itself above the
eastern reaches of the valley, two men awoke in the new bunkhouse that
had been erected at the Circle A ranch. They were in opposite beds, and,
as they lifted their heads and stared hard at one another with that
momentary bewilderment which follows the sleep of virile, active men,
the shorter flung back his blankets and swung his feet to the floor. He
rubbed his tousled hair and yawned and stretched.
"Awake!" he said, sleepily, and shook himself, "...
awake,"--brightening. "Awake, for 'tis thy weddin' morn!"
The speaker was Tommy Clary and on his words Bruce Bayard grinned
happily from his pillow.
"... weddin' morn ..." he murmured, as he sat up and reached for his
boots at the head of his bunk.
"Yes, you wake up this mornin', frisky an' young an' full of th' love of
life an' liberty, just like them pictures of th' New Year comin' in! An'
by sundown you'll be roped an' tied for-good-an'-for-all-by-God, an' t'
won't be long before you look like th' old year goin' out!"
He grinned, as he drew on his shirt, then dodged, as Bayard's heavy hat
sailed at him.
"It's goin' to be th' other way round, Tommy," the big fellow cried.
"We're going to turn time backward to-day!"
"Yes, I guess _you_ are, all right," deliberated Tommy. "Marriage has
always seemed to me like payin' taxes for somethin' you owned or goin'
to jail for havin' too much fun; always like payin' for somethin'. But
yourn ain't. Not much."
Bruce laughed. They talked in a desultory way until they had dressed.
Then Bayard walked to the other side of the room where a sheet had been
tacked and hung down over bulky objects. He pulled it aside and stood
back that Tommy might see the clothing that hung against the wall.
"How's that for raiment?" he demanded.
Tommy approached and lifted the skirt of the black sack coat gingerly,
critically. He turned it back, inspected the lining and then put his
hand to his lips to signify shock.
"Oh, my gosh, Bruce! Silk linin'! You'll be curlin' your hair next!"
"Nothing too good for this fracus, Tommy. Best suit of clothes I could
get made in Prescott. Those shoes--patent leather!" He picked up one and
blew a fleck of dust from it carefully. "Cost th' price of a pair of
boots an' don't look like they'd wear a mile." He reached into the
pocket of the coat and drew out a small package, unrolling it to
display a necktie. "Pearl gray, they call it, Tommy. An' swell as a city
bartender's!" He waved it in triumph before the sparkling eyes of his
pug-nosed friend.
"Gosh, Bruce, you're goin' to be done out like a buck peacock, clean
from your toes up. You--
"Say, what are you goin' to wear on your head?"
Bayard's hand dropped to his side and a crestfallen look crossed his
features.
"I'm a sheepherder, if I didn't forget," he muttered.
"Holy Smoke, Bruce, you can't wear an ordinary cowpuncher hat with them
varnished shoes an' that there necktie an' that dude suit!"
"I guess I'll have to, or go bareheaded."
Tommy looked at him earnestly for he thought that this oversight
mattered, and his simple, loyal heart was touched.
"Never mind, Bruce," he consoled. "It'll be all right, prob'ly. She
won't--"
"You go out and make me a crown of mistletoe, Tommy. Why, she wouldn't
like me not to be somethin' of my regular, everyday self. She'll like
these clothes, but she'll like my old hat, too!"
Tommy seemed to be relieved.
"Yes, maybe she will," he agreed. "She's kinda sensible, Bruce. She
ain't th' kind of a woman to jump her weddin' 'cause of a hat."
Bayard, in a sudden ecstasy of animal spirits, picked the small cowboy
up in his arms and tossed him toward the ceiling, as if he were a child,
and stopped only when Tommy wound his arms about his neck in a
strangling clasp.
"Le'me down, an' le'me show you my outfit!" he cried. "Don't get stuck
on yourself an' think you're goin' to be th' only city feller at this
party!"
Breathlessly Bayard laughed as he put him down and followed him to the
bunk where he had slept with his war-bag for a pillow. Tommy seated
himself, lifted the sack to his lap and, with fingers to his lips for
silence, untied the strings.
"Levi's!" he whispered, hoarsely, as he drew out a pair of brand new
overalls and shook them out proudly. "I ain't a reg'lar swell like you
are," he exclaimed, "but even if I am poor I wear clean pants at
weddin's!"
He groped in the bag again and drew out a scarf of gorgeous pink silk.
"Ain't that a eligent piece of goods?" he demanded, holding it out in
the early sunlight.
"It is that, Tommy!"
"But that ain't all. Hist!"
He shifted about, hiding the bag behind his body that the surprise might
be complete. Then, with a swift movement he held aloft proudly a
stiff-bosomed shirt.
"Ah!" he breathed as it was revealed entirely. "How's that for tony?"
"That's great!"
"Reg'lar armor plate, Bruce! I've gentled th' damn thing, too! Worked
with him 'n hour yesterday. He bucked an' rared an' tried to fall over
backwards with me, but I showed him reason after a while! Just proves
that if a man sets his mind on anythin' he can do it ... even if it's
bein' swell!"
Bruce laughed his assent and remarked to himself that the array of
smudgy thumb prints about the collar band was eloquent evidence of the
struggle poor Tommy had experienced.
"But this!" the other breathed, plunging again into the bag. "This here
is--"
He broke short. "Why, you pore son-of-a-gun!" he whispered as he
produced his collar.
Originally it had been a three-inch poke collar, but it was bent and
broken and smeared on one side with a broad patch of dirty brown.
"Gosh a'mighty, Tommy, you've gone an' crippled your collar!" Bruce said
in rebuke.
"Crippled is right, an' that ain't all! Kind of a sick lookin' pinto, he
is, with that bay spot on him." He looked up foolishly. "I ought to put
that plug in my pocket. You see, I rode out fast, an' this collar an' my
eatin' tobacco was in th' bottom of th' bag tied on behind my saddle.
Nig sweat an' it soaked through an' wet th' tobacco an' ... desecrated
my damn collar!"
He rose resolutely.
"A li'l thing like that can't make me quit!" he cried. "I rode this here
thing with its team-mate yesterday. I won't be stampeded by no change
in color. I've done my family wash in every stream between th' Spanish
Peaks an' California. I won't stop at this!"
He strode from the bunk house and Bruce, looking through the window, saw
him lift a bucket of water from the well and commence to scrub his
daubed collar vigorously.
Smoke rose from the chimney of the ranch house and through the kitchen
doorway Bayard saw a woman pass with quick, intent stride. It was Mrs.
Boyd. She and Mrs. Weyl had arrived the day before to set the house
aright and to deck the rooms in mountain greenery--mistletoe, juniper
berries and other decorative growth.
The new bunkhouse, erected when plans for the wedding were first made,
had been occupied for the first time by Bruce and Tommy that night.
Tommy was to return in the spring and put his war-bag under the bunk for
good, because Bruce was going in for more cattle and would be unable to
handle the work alone.
A half hour later the men presented themselves for breakfast, to be
utterly ignored by the bustling women. They were given coffee and steak
and made to sit on the kitchen steps while they ate, that they might not
be in the way. Bruce was amused and rebuked the women gently for the
seriousness with which they went about their work, but for Tommy the
whole procedure was a grave matter. He ate distractedly, hurriedly,
covering his embarrassment by astonishing gastronomic feats, glancing
sidelong at Bayard whenever the rancher spoke to the others, as though
those scarcely heeded remarks were something which made heavy demands
upon human courage.
The interior of the house had been changed greatly. The kitchen range
was new, the walls were papered instead of covered with whitewash. The
room in which Ned Lytton had slept and fretted and come back toward
health was no longer a bed chamber. Its windows had been increased to
four that the light might be of the best. Its floor was painted and
carpeted with new Navajo blankets and a bear skin. A piano stood against
one wall and on either side of the new fireplace were shelves weighted
with books that were to be opened and read and discussed by the light of
the new reading lamp which stood on the heavy library table.
Tommy was obviously relieved when his meal was finished. He drew a long
sigh when, wiping his mouth on a jumper sleeve, he stepped from the
house and followed Bruce toward the corral where the saddle horses ate
hay.
"It's a wonder you ain't ruined that horse, th' way you baby him," Clary
remarked, when Bayard, brush in hand, commenced grooming Abe's sleek
coat. "Now, with my Nig horse there, I figure that if he's full inside,
he's had his share. I'm afraid that if I brushed him every day he'd get
dudish an' unreliable, like me.... I'm ready to do a lot of rarin' an'
runnin' every time I get good an' clean!"
"I guess th' care Abe's had hasn't hurt him much," Bruce replied. "He
was ready when the pinch came; th' groomin' I'd been givin' him didn't
have much to do with it, I know, but th' fact that we were pals ... that
counted."
His companion sobered and answered.
"You're right, there, Bruce, he sure done some tall travelin' that day."
"If he hadn't been ready ... we wouldn't be plannin' a weddin' this
noon. That's how much it counted!"
Tommy moved closer and twined his fingers in the sorrel's mane. Neither
spoke for a moment; then Clary blurted:
"She's got th' same kind of stuff, Bruce, or she wouldn't come through
neither. Abe made th' run of his life and wasn't hurt by it; she went
through about four sections of hell an'.... She looked like a Texas rose
when she got off th' train last week!"
Bayard rapped the dust from his brush and answered:
"You're right; they're alike, Tommy. It takes heart, courage, to go
through things that Ann an' Abe went through ... different kinds. It
wasn't so much what happened at th' mine. It was th' years she'd put in,
abused, fearin', tryin' not to hate. That was what took th' sand, th'
nerve. If she hadn't been th' right sort, she'd have crumpled up under
it."
Clary said nothing for a time but eyed Bruce carefully, undisguised
affection in his scrutiny. Then he spoke,
"My guess is that you two'll set a new pace on this here trail to
happiness!"
* * * * *
The forenoon dragged. Bruce completed the small tasks of morning and
hunted for more duties to occupy his hands. The women would not allow
him in the house, and beneath his controlled exterior he was in a fury
of impatience. From time to time he glanced speculatively at the sun;
then referred to his watch to affirm his judgment of the day's growth.
Ann was still at the Boyd ranch and old Hi was to drive her to her new
home before noon. Judson Weyl, who was to marry them, had been called
away the day before but had given his word that he would leave Yavapai
in time to reach the ranch with an ample margin, for Bruce insisted that
there be no hitch in the plans. Long before either was due the big
rancher frequently scanned the country to the north and east for signs
of travelers.
"You're about as contented as a hen with a lost chicken," Tommy
observed.
Bruce smiled slightly and scratched his chin.
"Well, I'd hate to have anything delay this round-up."
Another hour dragged out before his repeated gazing was rewarded. Then,
off in the east, a smudge of dust resolved itself into a team and wagon.
"That's Hi with Ann!" he said excitedly. "Our sky pilot ought to be here
soon."
"Lots of time yet," Tommy assured. "He won't be leavin' town for a
couple of hours."
"Maybe not, Tommy, but I don't trust that chariot of fire. I'm afraid
it'll give its death rattle almost any time, dump our parson in th' road
an' stop our weddin'. That'd be bad!"
Tommy roused to the dire possibilities of the situation.
"It would," he agreed. "It takes a preacher, a fool or a brave man to
trust himself in a ve-hicle like that. He ought to come horseback. He--
"Say, Bruce, why can't I saddle up an' lead a horse in after him? I can
make it easy. That'd keep you from worryin'. Matter of fact, between th'
women in th' house an' you with your fussin' outdoors I'm afraid my
nerves won't stand it all! I've been through stampedes on th' Pecos, an'
blizzards in Nebraska; I've been lost in Death Valley an' I've had a
silver tip try to box my ears, but I just naturally can't break myself
to p'lite society!"
"I don't believe you, but your idea wins," Bayard laughed. "Go on after
him. Take ... Say, you take Abe for him to ride back! That's th' thing
to do. You put th' parson on Abe an' we'll be as certain to start this
fracas on time as I am that his 'bus is apt to secede from itself on th'
road any minute!"
Bruce sent Abe away with Tommy. Ann arrived. Twenty minutes before the
time set for the simple ceremony Abe brought the clergyman through the
big gate of the Circle A with his swinging trot, ears up, head alert, as
though with conscious pride.
"The fact is, Bruce, I'd have been late, if Tommy hadn't come after me,"
Weyl confessed as he dismounted.
"So? I've been expectin' somethin' would happen to you. What was it?"
"Why, Nicodemus, my off horse, kicked four spokes out of a front wheel
and, when we were putting on another, we found that the axle was
hopelessly cracked."
"I knew that chariot would quit sometime, but this horse, th' stallion
shod with fire ... he don't know what quittin' is!"
* * * * *
The sun was slipping toward the western horizon when the last of the few
who had attended the ceremony passed from sight. For a long time Bruce
and Ann stood under the ash tree, watching them depart, hearing the last
sounds of wheel and hoof and voice break in on the evening quiet.
The girl was wonderfully happy. The strained look about her eyes, the
quick, nervous gestures that had characterized her after the tragedy of
Ned Lytton's death and before her return to the East, were gone. A
splendid look of peace was upon her; one life was gone, thrown away as a
piece of botched work; another was opening.
Far away to the north and eastward snow-covered peaks, triplets, rose
against the bright blue of the sky. As Bruce and Ann looked they lost
the silver whiteness and became flushed with the pink of dying day. The
distant, pine-covered heights had become blue, the far draws were
gathering their purple mists of evening. The lilac of the valley's
coloring grew fainter, more delicate, while the deep mauves of a range
of hills to the southward deepened towards a dead brown. Over all, that
incomparable silence, the inexplicable peace that comes with evening in
those big places. No need to dwell further on this for you who have
watched and felt and become lost in it; useless to attempt more for the
uninitiate.
Ann's arm slipped into her husband's and she whispered:
"Evening on Manzanita! Is there anything more beautiful?"
Bayard smiled.
"Not unless it's daytime," he said. "You know, Ann, for a long, long
time it's seemed to me as though there's been a shadow on that valley.
Even on the brightest days it ain't looked like it should. But now....
Why, even with the sun goin' down, it seems to me as if that shadow's
lifted!
"I feel freer, too. This fenced-in feelin' that I've had is gone. I ...
Why, I feel like life, the world, was all open to me, smilin' at me,
waitin' for me, just like that old valley out there.
"What do you s'pose makes it so?"
"Must I tell you?" she asked, reaching her arms upward for his neck.
"Tell me," he said. "With your lips, but without words. That's a kind of
riddle, I guess! Do you know the answer?"
Indeed, she did!
THE END
* * * * *
The Beacon Biographies
_Edited by M. A. DeWOLFE HOWE_
A Series of short biographies of eminent Americans, the aim of which is
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John James Audubon, by John Burroughs
Edwin Booth, by Charles Townsend Copeland
Phillips Brooks, by M. A. DeWolfe Howe
John Brown, by Joseph Edgar Chamberlin
Aaron Burr, by Henry Childs Merwin
James Fenimore Cooper, by W. B. Shubrick Clymer
Stephen Decatur, by Cyrus Townsend Brady
Frederick Douglass, by Charles W. Chesnutt
Ralph Waldo Emerson, by Frank B. Sanborn
David G. Farragut, by James Barnes
John Fiske, by Thomas Sergeant Perry
Benjamin Franklin, by Lindsay Swift
Ulysses S. Grant, by Owen Wister
Alexander Hamilton, by James Schouler
James Russell Lowell, by Edward E. Hale, Jr.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse By John Trowbridge
Thomas Paine, by Ellery Sedgwick
Edgar Allan Poe, by John Macy
George Washington, by Worthington C. Ford
Daniel Webster, by Norman Hapgood
Walt Whitman, by Isaac Hull Platt
John Greenleaf Whittier, by Richard Burton
Nathaniel Hawthorne, by Mrs. James T. Fields
Father Hecker, by Henry D. Sedgwick, Jr.
Sam Houston, by Sarah Barnwell Elliott
Stonewall Jackson, by Carl Hovey
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow By George Rice Carpenter
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[Illustration]
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A Manual of Craftsmanship
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_The Book of Conservation_
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The Best Short Stories of 1915, 1916, 1917
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* * * * *
War
Beyond the Marne
By HENRIETTE CUVRU-MAGOT
Mademoiselle Henriette is the little friend and neighbor of Miss Mildred
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* * * * *
War
Covered With Mud and Glory
_A Machine Gun Company in Action_
By GEORGES LAFOND
Sergeant-Major, Territorial Hussars, French Army; Intelligence Officer,
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_Translated by_ EDWIN GILE RICH
_With an Introduction by_ MAURICE BARRES of the French Academy
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* * * * *
War
On the Edge of the War Zone
From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes
By MILDRED ALDRICH
The long-awaited continuation of "A Hilltop on the Marne."
Portrait frontispiece in photogravure and other illustrations. Cloth,
bound uniformly with the same author's "A Hilltop on the Marne" and
"Told in a French Garden."
Miss Aldrich tells what has happened from the day when the Germans were
turned back almost at her very door, to the never-to-be-forgotten moment
when the news reached France that the United States had entered the war.
* * * * *
Told in a French Garden: August, 1914
By MILDRED ALDRICH
With a portrait frontispiece in photogravure from a sketch of the author
by Pierre-Emile Cornillier.
Unlike Miss Aldrich's other books, "Told in a French Garden" is a
venture in fiction.
* * * * *
War
The White Flame of France
By MAUDE RADFORD WARREN
Author of "Peter Peter," "Barbara's Marriages," etc.
The front-line trenches at Rheims during a bombardment when the shells
were whistling over, two Zeppelin raids in London, the heroic services
of devoted actors and actresses when they played for the soldiers of
Verdun, the irony of the mad slaughter, the indestructibility of human
courage and ideals, the spirit and soul of suffering France, the real
meaning of the war--all these things are interpreted in this remarkable
book by a novelist with a brilliant record in the art of writing, who
spent more than half a year "over there."
You Who Can Help
Paris Letters of an American Army Officer's Wife, from August, 1916, to
January, 1918
By MARY SMITH CHURCHILL
The writer of these letters is the wife of Lieutenant-Colonel
Marlborough Churchill, who, the year before the entrance of the United
States into the war, was an American military observer in France, and
later became a member of General Pershing's staff. Mrs. Churchill
volunteered her services in Paris in connection with the American Fund
for the French Wounded--"the A. F. F. W."--and these are her letters
home, written with no thought of publication, but simply to tell her
family of the work in which she was engaged.
* * * * *
War Camps
Camp Devens
Described and Photographed by
ROGER BATCHELDER
_Author of "Watching and Waiting on the Border"_
"An accurate and complete description by pen and lens of Camp
Devens."--Roger Merrill, Major, A. G. R. C., 151st Infantry Brigade.
With 77 illustrations.
Camp Upton
Described and Photographed by
ROGER BATCHELDER
A companion volume to "Camp Devens," and like it, a book that fills a
long-felt want.
Illustrated with photographs
_Other volumes in the AMERICAN CAMPS SERIES in preparation_
* * * * *
War Poetry
Buddy's Blighty and other Verses from the Trenches
By LIEUTENANT JACK TURNER, M. C.
Here is a volume of poems that move the spirit to genuine emotion,
because every line pictures reality as the author knows it. The range of
subjects covers the many-sided life of the men who are fighting in the
Great War,--the happenings, the emotions, the give and take, the tragedy
and the comedy of soldiering.
"I have read Robert Service's 'Rhymes of a Red Cross Man'--and
_all_ the verses written on the war--but in my opinion 'Buddy's
Blighty,' by Jack Turner, is the best thing yet written--because
it's the truth."
_Private Harold R. Peat_
* * * * *
The Welfare Series
The Field of Social Service
Edited by PHILIP DAVIS, in collaboration with Maida Herman
An invaluable text-book for those who ask, "Just what can I do in social
work and how shall I go about it?"
Street-Land
By PHILIP DAVIS, assisted by Grace Kroll
What shall we do with the 11,000,000 children of the city streets? A
question of great national significance answered by an expert.
Consumption
By JOHN B. HAWES, 2d, M.D.
A book for laymen, by an eminent specialist, with particular
consideration of the fact that the problem of tuberculosis is first of
all a human problem.
One More Chance
An Experiment in Human Salvage
By LEWIS E. MacBRAYNE and JAMES P. RAMSAY
Human documents from the experiences of a Massachusetts probation
officer in the application of the probation system to the problems of
men and women who without it would have been permanently lost to useful
citizenship.
_Other volumes in preparation_