"I'm sorry, O'Ryan, I'm sorry for all I've done to you," Jopp sobbed. "I
was a sneak, but I want to own it. I want to be square now. You can tar
and feather me, if you like. I deserve it." He looked at the others. "I
deserve it," he repeated.
"That's what the boys had thought would be appropriate," said Gow Johnson
with a dry chuckle, and the crowd looked at each other and winked. The
wink was kindly, however. "To own up and take your gruel" was the easiest
way to touch the men of the prairie.
A half-hour later the roisterers, who had meant to carry Constantine Jopp
on a rail, carried Terry O'Ryan on their shoulders through the town,
against his will. As they passed the house where Miss Mackinder lived
some one shouted:
"Are you watching the rise of Orion?"
Many a time thereafter Terry O'Ryan and Molly Mackinder looked at the
galaxy in the evening sky with laughter and with pride. It had played its
part with Fate against Constantine Jopp and the little widow at Jansen.
It had never shone so brightly as on the night when Vigon struck oil on
O'Ryan's ranch. But Vigon had no memory of that. Such is the irony of
life.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Babbling covers a lot of secrets
Beneath it all there was a little touch of ridicule
What'll be the differ a hundred years from now
NORTHERN LIGHTS
By Gilbert Parker
Volume 5.
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