the city seemed the only place to go but a friend to the family offered to take tim to his sheep-camp he said tim could not do much at that time of the year but he would pay him all he could afford tim accepted the offer and spent four of the most dreary months he ever had in his life at last the time for the long looked for home trip came it was the day before christmas as tim boarded the train at a near by station the men whom he was with who were headed for the smoker called to him come on kid don't go in there with civilized folks lookin as you do he took no notice of them but started into the other car he turned however before he got inside the door seth lennox was on the front seat and he did not want seth to see him in his sheep-herder clothes so he decided to go with the men when the train stopped at tim's home town he was the last one off he wanted to be sure not to meet seth but as he was leaving the train he ran into seth before he knew it seth hailed him and asked him where he had been and all about himself but tim evaded his questions as much as possible and in the hurry seth found out nothing about what had happened there was a happy meeting that night when tim reached home he never had been away from his mother before and the life on the desert had been so different from what he was used to that he appreciated her and home more now than ever before and he also became more firm in his resolve that at some time he would make her happy after seth left tim that night he began to wonder where tim had been his father might have sent him out on one of his ranches but there was none in that direction which he knew of and then tim's appearance showed that he had not been in civilization for some time he could find out about it as soon as he got home nothing was said about it however until at the breakfast table next morning when seth asked about tim mr lennox disliked to speak of the matter so he merely said he had found kty gtorn of tfje mtbtt tafee 3cabem tim was not what he thought him to be and had let him go seth insisted upon knowing the particulars and when he learned what it was all over he simply said and it is all ray fault what said mr lennox why i took the money i ought to have said something about it of course i had but i thought you would know mr lennox's head dropped as he said how easy it is to misjudge another then they were both glad and sad glad because tim had not taken the money sad because they had caused tim and his mother so much trouble it was decided though at that break fast table to make it right with them that afternoon tim and his mother were at their humble home enjoying each other's company and the nicest things mrs norris could afford for christmas when a knock came at the door mrs norris answered it and to her surprise found seth lennox there she could not imagine what he wanted and was almost dumbfounded when he said he had come to take tim and her to his home if they would go she could not think what was wanted of them the lennox home but as seth in sisted she made preparations to go that evening there was a great reconcilation between the two families mr lennox expressed his regret for having ac cused tim of taking the money but he had learned to be sus picious of people and from the circumstances it looked as though no one else could have done it to right the wrong he had done and to reward the first person as he said he had ever known not to gain by being dishonest when he had a good chance he asked tim and his mother to come and live with him and said he would see that tim had the education he had so longed for tim was a happy boy that night not so much because of himself as for the favorable prospects of making his mother happy