THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF MR. AND MBS. ALFRED R. GIFFDI THROUGH SH A: 30 w TO SUNSHIN FITCH. "No man shall arise in the judgment and say 'Doctor Benjamin Rush made me a drunkard.'" Doctor Rush in 1775. HASTINGS, NEBRASKA. GAZETTE-JOURNAL COMPANY. 1885. TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER, WHO, THOUGH HE HAS ENTERED INTO THE KI'.ST THAT KEMAINETH, STILL LIVES IX HIS LOVING COUNSELS AND PIOUS EXAMPLES, AND TO MY MOTHER, AT WHOSE KNEE I EARLY LEARNED THOSE PURE PRINCIPLES WHICH HAVE BEEN THE GUIDE A.\*D SAFEGUARD OF MY LIFE, THIS LITTLJJ OFFERING IS > ' AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, by II. P. FITCII, in the office of the Librarian of Con gress, Washington. [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] CONTENTS. I. The Students 5 CHAPTER II. The Wedding 1 1 CHAPTER III Gathering Shadows 21 CHAPTER I V Plotting 28 CHAPTER V The Victim 43 CHAPTER VI The Comforter 62 CHAPTER VII The Shadows Deepen 72 CHAPTER VIII The Cup Full 79 CHAPTER IX The Blackness of Darkness 92 CHAPTER X The Trial 109 CRAPTER XI The Morning Dawneth 143 CHAPTER XII "Asa Whirlwind." 167 CHAPTER XIII Sunshine 178 CHAPTER XIV Conclusion 185 754866 PREFACE. For a number of years the Author of this little volume has been in the habit of keeping a memorandum of the various incidents coming under his own observation, illus trative of the laws regulating the traffic in intoxicating drinks. In the following pages he has endeavored to weave these various incidents into the form of a simple story, in the hope that it may aid those who are so earn estly striving to save our country from this great national evil. He is fully conscious of its many demerits as a literary effort, and trusts this frank acknowledgement will, as much as is proper; disarm criticism. It h