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They were strong men built the Big Road, in the early days of America, and it was the Irish did it.

My grandfather, Tim O’Halloran, was a young man then, and wild. He could swing a pick all day and dance all night, if there was a fiddler handy; and if there was a girl to be pleased he pleased her, for he had the tongue and the eye. Likewise, if there was a man to be stretched, he could stretch him with the one blow.

I saw him later on in years when he was thin and white-headed, but in his youth he was not so. A thin, white-headed man would have had little chance, and they driving the Road to the West. It was two-fisted men cleared the plains and bored through the mountains. They came in the thousands to do it from every county in Ireland; and now the names are not known. But it’s over their graves you pass, when you ride in the Pullmans. And Tim O’Halloran was one of them, six feet high and solid as the Rock of Cashel when he stripped to the skin.

He needed to be all of that, for it was not easy labor. ’Twas a time of great booms and expansions in the railroad line, and they drove the tracks north and south, east and west, as if the devil was driving behind. For this they must have the boys with shovel and pick, and every immigrant ship from Ireland was crowded with bold young men. They left famine and England’s rule behind them—and it was the thought of many they’d pick up gold for the asking in the free States of America, though it’s little gold that most of them ever saw. They found themselves up to their necks in the water of the canals, and burnt black by the suns of the prairie—and that was a great surprise to them. They saw their sisters and their mothers made servants that had not been servants in Ireland, and that was a strange change too. Eh, the death and the broken hopes it takes to make a country! But those with the heart and the tongue kept the tongue and the heart.

Tim O’Halloran came from Clonmelly, and he was the fool of the family and the one who listened to tales. His brother Ignatius went for a priest and his brother James for a sailor, but they knew he could not do those things. He was strong and biddable and he had the O’Halloran tongue; but there came a time of famine, when the younger mouths cried for bread and there was little room in the nest. He was not entirely wishful to emigrate, and yet, when he thought of it, he was wishful. ’Tis often enough that way, with a younger son. Perhaps he was the more wishful because of Kitty Malone.

’Tis a quiet place, Clonmelly, and she’d been the light of it to him. But now the Malones had gone to the States of America—and it was well known that Kitty had a position there the like of which was not to be found in all Dublin Castle. They called her a hired girl, to be sure, but did not she eat from gold plates, like all the citizens of America? And when she stirred her tea, was not the spoon made of gold? Tim O’Halloran thought of this, and of the chances and adventures that a bold young man might find, and at last he went to the boat. There were many from Clonmelly on that boat, but he kept himself to himself and dreamed his own dreams.

The more disillusion it was to him, when the boat landed him in Boston and he found Kitty Malone there, scrubbing the stairs of an American house with a pail and brush by her side. But that did not matter, after the first, for her cheeks still had the rose in them and she looked at him in the same way. ’Tis true there was an Orangeman courting her—conductor he was on the horsecars, and Tim did not like that. But after Tim had seen her, he felt himself the equal of giants; and when the call came for strong men to work in the wilds of the West, he was one of the first to offer. They broke a sixpence between them before he left—it was an English sixpence, but that did not matter greatly to them. And Tim O’Halloran was going to make his fortune, and Kitty Malone to wait for him, though her family liked the Orangeman best.

Still and all, it was cruel work in the West, as such work must be, and Tim O’Halloran was young. He liked the strength and the wildness of it—he’d drink with the thirstiest and fight with the wildest—and that he knew how to do. It was all meat and drink to him—the bare tracks pushing ahead across the bare prairie and the fussy cough of the wood-burning locomotives and the cold blind eyes of a murdered man, looking up at the prairie stars. And then there was the cholera and the malaria—and the strong man you’d worked on the grade beside, all of a sudden gripping his belly with the fear of death on his face and his shovel falling to the ground.

Next day he would not be there and they’d scratch a name from the pay roll. Tim O’Halloran saw it all.

He saw it all and it changed his boyhood and hardened it. But, for all that, there were times when the black fit came upon him, as it does to the Irish, and he knew he was alone in a strange land. Well, that’s a hard hour to get through, and he was young. There were times when he’d have given all the gold of the Americas for a smell of Clonmelly air or a glimpse of Clonmelly sky. Then he’d drink or dance or fight or put a black word on the foreman, just to take the aching out of his mind. It did not help him with his work and it wasted his pay; but it was stronger than he, and not even the thought of Kitty Malone could stop it. ’Tis like that, sometimes.

Well, it happened one night he was coming back from the place where they sold the potheen, and perhaps he’d had a trifle more of it than was advisable. Yet he had not drunk it for that, but to keep the queer thoughts from his mind. And yet, the more that he drank, the queerer were the thoughts in his head. For he kept thinking of the Luck of the O’Hallorans and the tales his grandda had told about it in the old country—the tales about pookas and banshees and leprechauns with long white beards.

“And that’s a queer thing to be thinking and myself at labor with a shovel on the open prairies of America,” he said to himself. “Sure, creatures like that might live and thrive in the old country—and I’d be the last to deny it—but ’tis obvious they could not live here. The first sight of Western America would scare them into conniptions. And as for the Luck of the O’Hallorans, ’tis little good I’ve had of it, and me not even able to rise to foreman and marry Kitty Malone. They called me the fool of the family in Clonmelly, and I misdoubt but they were right. Tim O’Halloran, you’re a worthless man, for all your strong back and arms.” It was with such black, bitter thoughts as these that he went striding over the prairie. And it was just then that he heard the cry in the grass.

’Twas a strange little piping cry, and only the half of it human. But Tim O’Halloran ran to it, for in truth he was spoiling for a fight. “Now this will be a beautiful young lady,” he said to himself as he ran, “and I will save her from robbers; and her father, the rich man, will ask me—but, wirra, ’tis not her I wish to marry, ’tis Kitty Malone. Well, he’ll set me up in business, out of friendship and gratitude, and then I will send for Kitty—”

But by then he was out of breath, and by the time he had reached the place where the cry came from he could see that it was not so. It was only a pair of young wolf cubs, and they chasing something small and helpless and playing with it as a cat plays with a mouse. Where the wolf cub is the old wolves are not far, but Tim O’Halloran felt as bold as a lion. “Be off with you!” he cried and he threw a stick and a stone. They ran away into the night, and he could hear them howling—a lonesome sound. But he knew the camp was near, so he paid small attention to that but looked for the thing they’d been chasing.

It scuttled in the grass but he could not see it. Then he stooped down and picked something up, and when he had it in his hand he stared at it unbelieving. For it was a tiny shoe, no bigger than a child’s. And more than that, it was not the kind of shoe that is made in America. Tim O’Halloran stared and stared at it—and at the silver buckle upon it—and still he could not believe.

“If I’d found this in the old country,” he said to himself, half aloud, “I’d have sworn that it was a leprechaun’s and looked for the pot of gold. But here, there’s no chance of that—”

“I’ll trouble you for the shoe,” said a small voice close by his feet.

Tim O’Halloran stared round him wildly. “By the piper that played before Moses!” he said. “Am I drunk beyond comprehension? Or am I mad? For I thought that I heard a voice.”

“So you did, silly man,” said the voice again, but irritated, “and I’ll trouble you for my shoe, for it’s cold in the dewy grass.”

“Honey,” said Tim O’Halloran, beginning to believe his ears, “honey dear, if you’ll but show yourself—”

“I’ll do that and gladly,” said the voice; and with that the grasses parted, and a little old man with a long white beard stepped out. He was perhaps the size of a well-grown child, as O’Halloran could see clearly by the moonlight on the prairie; moreover, he was dressed in the clothes of antiquity, and he carried cobbler’s tools in the belt at his side.

“By faith and belief, but it is a leprechaun!” cried O’Halloran, and with that he made a grab for the apparition. For you must know, in case you’ve been ill brought up, that a leprechaun is a sort of cobbler fairy and each one knows the whereabouts of a pot of gold. Or it’s so they say in the old country. For they say you can tell a leprechaun by his long white beard and his cobbler’s tools; and once you have the possession of him, he must tell you where his gold is hid.

The little old man skipped out of reach as nimbly as a cricket. “Is this Clonmelly courtesy?” he said with a shake in his voice, and Tim O’Halloran felt ashamed.

“Sure, I didn’t mean to hurt your worship at all,” he said, “but if you’re what you seem to be, well, then, there’s the little matter of a pot of gold—”

“Pot of gold!” said the leprechaun, and his voice was hollow and full of scorn. “And would I be here today if I had that same? Sure, it all went to pay my sea passage, as you might expect.”

“Well,” said Tim O’Halloran, scratching his head, for that sounded reasonable enough, “that may be so or again it may not be so. But—”

“Oh, ’tis bitter hard,” said the leprechaun, and his voice was weeping, “to come to the waste, wild prairies all alone, just for the love of Clonmelly folk—and then to be disbelieved by the first that speaks to me! If it had been an Ulsterman now, I might have expected it. But the O’Hallorans wear the green.”

“So they do,” said Tim O’Halloran, “and it shall not be said of an O’Halloran that he denied succor to the friendless. I’ll not touch you.”

“Do you swear it?” said the leprechaun.

“I swear it,” said Tim O’Halloran.

“Then I’ll just creep under your coat,” said the leprechaun, “for I’m near destroyed by the chills and damps of the prairie. Oh, this weary emigrating!” he said, with a sigh like a furnace. “ ’Tis not what it’s cracked up to be.”

Tim O’Halloran took off his own coat and wrapped it around him. Then he could see him closer—and it could not be denied that the leprechaun was a pathetic sight. He’d a queer little boyish face, under the long white beard, but his clothes were all torn and ragged and his cheeks looked hollow with hunger.

“Cheer up!” said Tim O’Halloran and patted him on the back. “It’s a bad day that beats the Irish. But tell me first how you came here—for that still sticks in my throat.”

“And would I be staying behind with half Clonmelly on the water?” said the leprechaun stoutly. “By the bones of Finn, what sort of a man do you think I am?”

“That’s well said,” said Tim O’Halloran. “And yet I never heard of the Good People emigrating before.”

“True for you,” said the leprechaun. “The climate here’s not good for most of us and that’s a fact. There’s a boggart or so that came over with the English, but then the Puritan ministers got after them and they had to take to the woods. And I had a word or two, on my way West, with a banshee that lives by Lake Superior—a decent woman she was, but you could see she’d come down in the world. For even the bits of children wouldn’t believe in her; and when she let out a screech, sure they thought it was a steamboat. I misdoubt she’s died since then—she was not in good health when I left her.

“And as for the native spirits—well, you can say what you like, but they’re not very comfortable people. I was captive to some of them a week and they treated me well enough, but they whooped and danced too much for a quiet man, and I did not like the long, sharp knives on them. Oh, I’ve had the adventures on my way here,” he said, “but they’re over now, praises be, for I’ve found a protector at last,” and he snuggled closer under O’Halloran’s coat.

“Well,” said O’Halloran, somewhat taken aback, “I did not think this would be the way of it when I found O’Halloran’s Luck that I’d dreamed of so long. For, first I save your life from the wolves; and now, it seems, I must be protecting you further. But in the tales it’s always the other way round.”

“And is the company and conversation of an ancient and experienced creature like myself nothing to you?” said the leprechaun fiercely. “Me that had my own castle at Clonmelly and saw O’Sheen in his pride? Then St. Patrick came—wirra, wirra!—and there was an end to it all. For some of us—the Old Folk of Ireland—he baptized, and some of us he chained with the demons of hell. But I was Lazy Brian, betwixt and between, and all I wanted was peace and a quiet life. So he changed me to what you see—me that had six tall harpers to harp me awake in the morning—and laid a doom upon me for being betwixt and between. I’m to serve Clonmelly folk and follow them wherever they go till I serve the servants of servants in a land at the world’s end. And then, perhaps, I’ll be given a Christian soul and can follow my own inclinations.”

“Serve the servants of servants?” said O’Halloran. “Well, that’s a hard riddle to read.”

“It is that,” said the leprechaun, “for I never once met the servant of a servant in Clonmelly, all the time I’ve been looking. I doubt but that was in St. Patrick’s mind.”

“If it’s criticizing the good saint you are, I’ll leave you here on the prairie,” said Tim O’Halloran.

“I’m not criticizing him,” said the leprechaun with a sigh, “but I wish he’d been less hasty. Or more specific. And now, what do we do?”

“Well,” said O’Halloran, and he sighed, too, “ ’tis a great responsibility, and one I never thought to shoulder. But since you’ve asked for help, you must have it. Only there’s just this to be said. There’s little money in my pocket.”

“Sure, ’tis not for your money I’ve come to you,” said the leprechaun joyously. “And I’ll stick closer than a brother.”

“I’ve no doubt of that,” said O’Halloran with a wry laugh. “Well, clothes and food I can get for you—but if you stick with me, you must work as well. And perhaps the best way would be for you to be my young nephew, Rory, run away from home to work on the railroad.”

“And how would I be your young nephew, Rory, and me with a long white beard?”

“Well,” said Tim O’Halloran with a grin, “as it happens, I’ve got a razor in my pocket.”

And with that you should have heard the leprechaun. He stamped and he swore and he pled—but it was no use at all. If he was to follow Tim O’Halloran, he must do it on Tim O’Halloran’s terms and no two ways about it. So O’Halloran shaved him at last, by the light of the moon, to the leprechaun’s great horror, and when he got him back to the construction camp and fitted him out in some old duds of his own—well, it wasn’t exactly a boy he looked, but it was more like a boy than anything else. Tim took him up to the foreman the next day and got him signed on for a water boy, and it was a beautiful tale he told the foreman. As well, too, that he had the O’Halloran tongue to tell it with, for when the foreman first looked at young Rory you could see him gulp like a man that’s seen a ghost.

“And now what do we do?” said the leprechaun to Tim when the interview was over.

“Why, you work,” said Tim with a great laugh, “and Sundays you wash your shirt.”

“Thank you for nothing,” said the leprechaun with an angry gleam in his eye. “It was not for that I came here from Clonmelly.”

“Oh, we’ve all come here for great fortune,” said Tim, “but it’s hard to find that same. Would you rather be with the wolves?”

“Oh, no,” said the leprechaun.

“Then drill, ye tarrier, drill!” said Tim O’Halloran and shouldered his shovel, while the leprechaun trailed behind.

At the end of the day the leprechaun came to him.

“I’ve never done mortal work before,” he said, “and there’s no bone in my body that’s not a pain and an anguish to me.”

“You’ll feel better after supper,” said O’Halloran. “And the night’s made for sleep.”

“But where will I sleep?” said the leprechaun.

“In the half of my blanket,” said Tim, “for are you not young Rory, my nephew?”

It was not what he could have wished, but he saw he could do no otherwise. Once you start a tale, you must play up to the tale.

But that was only the beginning, as Tim O’Halloran soon found out. For Tim O’Halloran had tasted many things before, but not responsibility, and now responsibility was like a bit in his mouth. It was not so bad the first week, while the leprechaun was still ailing. But when, what with the food and the exercise, he began to recover his strength, ’twas a wonder Tim O’Halloran’s hair did not turn gray overnight. He was not a bad creature, the leprechaun, but he had all the natural mischief of a boy of twelve and, added to that, the craft and knowledge of generations.

There was the three pipes and the pound of shag the leprechaun stole from McGinnis—and the dead frog he slipped in the foreman’s tea—and the bottle of potheen he got hold of one night when Tim had to hold his head in a bucket of water to sober him up. A fortunate thing it was that St. Patrick had left him no great powers, but at that he had enough to put the jumping rheumatism on Shaun Kelly for two days—and it wasn’t till Tim threatened to deny him the use of his razor entirely that he took off the spell.

That brought Rory to terms, for by now he’d come to take a queer pleasure in playing the part of a boy and he did not wish to have it altered.

Well, things went on like this for some time, and Tim O’Halloran’s savings grew; for whenever the drink was running he took no part in it, for fear of mislaying his wits when it came to deal with young Rory. And as it was with the drink, so was it with other things—till Tim O’Halloran began to be known as a steady man. And then, as it happened one morning, Tim O’Halloran woke up early. The leprechaun had finished his shaving and was sitting cross-legged, chuckling to himself.

“And what’s your source of amusement so early in the day?” said Tim sleepily.

“Oh,” said the leprechaun, “I’m just thinking of the rare hard work we’ll have when the line’s ten miles farther on.”

“And why should it be harder there than it is here?” said Tim.

“Oh, nothing,” said the leprechaun, “but those fools of surveyors have laid out the line where there’s hidden springs of water. And when we start digging, there’ll be the devil to pay.”

“Do you know that for a fact?” said Tim.

“And why wouldn’t I know it?” said the leprechaun. “Me that can hear the waters run underground.”

“Then what should we do?” said Tim.

“Shift the line half a mile to the west and you’d have a firm roadbed,” said the leprechaun.

Tim O’Halloran said no more at the time. But for all that, he managed to get to the assistant engineer in charge of construction at the noon hour. He could not have done it before, but now he was known as a steady man. Nor did he tell where he got the information—he put it on having seen a similar thing in Clonmelly.

Well, the engineer listened to him and had a test made—and sure enough, they struck the hidden spring. “That’s clever work, O’Halloran,” said the engineer. “You’ve saved us time and money. And now how would you like to be foreman of a gang?”

“I’d like it well,” said Tim O’Halloran.

“Then you boss Gang Five from this day forward,” said the engineer. “And I’ll keep my eye on you. I like a man that uses his head.”

“Can my nephew come with me,” said Tim, “for, ’troth, he’s my responsibility?”

“He can,” said the engineer, who had children of his own.

So Tim got promoted and the leprechaun along with him. And the first day on the new work, young Rory stole the gold watch from the engineer’s pocket, because he liked the tick of it, and Tim had to threaten him with fire and sword before he’d put it back.

Well, things went on like this for another while, till finally Tim woke up early on another morning and heard the leprechaun laughing.

“And what are you laughing at?” he said.

“Oh, the more I see of mortal work, the less reason there is to it,” said the leprechaun. “For I’ve been watching the way they get the rails up to us on the line. And they do it thus and so. But if they did it so and thus, they could do it in half the time with half the work.”

“Is that so indeed?” said Tim O’Halloran, and he made him explain it clearly. Then, after he’d swallowed his breakfast, he was off to his friend the engineer.

“That’s a clever idea, O’Halloran,” said the engineer. “We’ll try it.” And a week after that, Tim O’Halloran found himself with a hundred men under him and more responsibility than he’d ever had in his life. But it seemed little to him beside the responsibility of the leprechaun, and now the engineer began to lend him books to study and he studied them at nights while the leprechaun snored in its blanket.

A man could rise rapidly in those days—and it was then Tim O’Halloran got the start that was to carry him far. But he did not know he was getting it, for his heart was near broken at the time over Kitty Malone. She’d written him a letter or two when he first came West, but now there were no more of them and at last he got a word from her family telling him he should not be disturbing Kitty with letters from a laboring man. That was bitter for Tim O’Halloran, and he’d think about Kitty and the Orangeman in the watches of the night and groan. And then, one morning, he woke up after such a night and heard the leprechaun laughing.

“And what are you laughing at now?” he said sourly. “For my heart’s near burst with its pain.”

“I’m laughing at a man that would let a cold letter keep him from his love, and him with pay in his pocket and the contract ending the first,” said the leprechaun.

Tim O’Halloran struck one hand in the palm of the other.

“By the piper, but you’ve the right of it, you queer little creature!” he said. “ ’Tis back to Boston we go when this job’s over.”

It was laborer Tim O’Halloran that had come to the West, but it was Railroadman Tim O’Halloran that rode back East in the cars like a gentleman, with a free pass in his pocket and the promise of a job on the railroad that was fitting a married man. The leprechaun, I may say, gave some trouble in the cars, more particularly when he bit a fat woman that called him a dear little boy; but what with giving him peanuts all the way, Tim O’Halloran managed to keep him fairly quieted.

When they got to Boston he fitted them both out in new clothes from top to toe. Then he gave the leprechaun some money and told him to amuse himself for an hour or so while he went to see Kitty Malone.

He walked into the Malones’ flat as bold as brass, and there sure enough, in the front room, were Kitty Malone and the Orangeman. He was trying to squeeze her hand, and she refusing, and it made Tim O’Halloran’s blood boil to see that. But when Kitty saw Tim O’Halloran she let out a scream.

“Oh, Tim!” she said. “Tim! And they told me you were dead in the plains of the West!”

“And a great pity that he was not,” said the Orangeman, blowing out his chest with the brass buttons on it, “but a bad penny always turns up.”

“Bad penny is it, you brass-buttoned son of iniquity,” said Tim O’Halloran. “I have but the one question to put you. Will you stand or will you run?”

“I’ll stand as we stood at Boyne Water,” said the Orangeman, grinning ugly. “And whose backs did we see that day?”

“Oh, is that the tune?” said Tim O’Halloran. “Well, I’ll give you a tune to match it. Who fears to speak of Ninety-Eight?”

With that he was through the Orangeman’s guard and stretched him at the one blow, to the great consternation of the Malones. The old woman started to screech and Pat Malone to talk of policemen, but Tim O’Halloran silenced the both of them.

“Would you be giving your daughter to an Orangeman that works on the horsecars, when she might be marrying a future railroad president?” he said. And with that he pulled his savings out of his pocket and the letter that promised the job for a married man. That quieted the Malones a little and, once they got a good look at Tim O’Halloran, they began to change their tune. So, after they’d got the Orangeman out of the house—and he did not go willing, but he went as a whipped man must—Tim O’Halloran recounted all of his adventures.

The tale did not lose in the telling, though he did not speak of the leprechaun, for he thought that had better be left to a later day; and at the end Pat Malone was offering him a cigar. “But I find none upon me,” said he with a wink at Tim, “so I’ll just run down to the corner.”

“And I’ll go with you,” said Kitty’s mother, “for if Mr. O’Halloran stays to supper—and he’s welcome—there’s a bit of shopping to be done.”

So the old folks left Tim O’Halloran and his Kitty alone. But just as they were in the middle of their planning and contriving for the future, there came a knock on the door.

“What’s that?” said Kitty, but Tim O’Halloran knew well enough and his heart sank within him. He opened the door—and sure enough, it was the leprechaun.

“Well, Uncle Tim,” said the creature, grinning, “I’m here.” Tim O’Halloran took a look at him as if he saw him for the first time. He was dressed in new clothes, to be sure, but there was soot on his face and his collar had thumbmarks on it already. But that wasn’t what made the difference. New clothes or old, if you looked at him for the first time, you could see he was an unchancy thing, and not like Christian souls.

“Kitty,” he said, “Kitty darlint, I had not told you. But this is my young nephew, Rory, that lives with me.”

Well, Kitty welcomed the boy with her prettiest manners, though Tim O’Halloran could see her giving him a side look now and then. All the same, she gave him a slice of cake, and he tore it apart with his fingers; but in the middle of it he pointed to Kitty Malone.

“Have you made up your mind to marry my Uncle Tim?” he said. “Faith, you’d better, for he’s a grand catch.”

“Hold your tongue, young Rory,” said Tim O’Halloran angrily, and Kitty blushed red. But then she took the next words out of his mouth.

“Let the gossoon be, Tim O’Halloran,” she said bravely. “Why shouldn’t he speak his mind? Yes, Roryeen—it’s I that will be your aunt in the days to come—and a proud woman too.”

“Well, that’s good,” said the leprechaun, cramming the last of the cake in his mouth, “for I’m thinking you’ll make a good home for us, once you’re used to my ways.”

“Is that to be the way of it, Tim?” said Kitty Malone very quietly, but Tim O’Halloran looked at her and knew what was in her mind. And he had the greatest impulse in the world to deny the leprechaun and send him about his business. And yet, when he thought of it, he knew that he could not do it, not even if it meant the losing of Kitty Malone.

“I’m afraid that must be the way of it, Kitty,” he said with a groan.

“Then I honor you for it,” said Kitty, with her eyes like stars. She went up to the leprechaun and took his hard little hand. “Will you live with us, young Rory?” she said. “For we’d be glad to have you.”

“Thank you kindly, Kitty Malone—O’Halloran to be,” said the leprechaun. “And you’re lucky, Tim O’Halloran—lucky yourself and lucky in your wife. For if you had denied me then, your luck would have left you—and if she had denied me then, ’twould be but half luck for you both. But now the luck will stick to you the rest of your lives. And I’m wanting another piece of cake,” said he.

“Well, it’s a queer lad you are,” said Kitty Malone, but she went for the cake. The leprechaun swung his legs and looked at Tim O’Halloran. “I wonder what keeps my hands off you,” said the latter with a groan.

“Fie!” said the leprechaun, grinning, “and would you be lifting the hand to your one nephew? But tell me one thing, Tim O’Halloran, was this wife you’re to take ever in domestic service?”

“And what if she was?” said Tim O’Halloran, firing up. “Who thinks the worse of her for that?”

“Not I,” said the leprechaun, “for I’ve learned about mortal labor since I came to this country—and it’s an honest thing. But tell me one thing more. Do you mean to serve this wife of yours and honor her through the days of your wedded life?”

“Such is my intention,” said Tim, “though what business it is of—”

“Never mind,” said the leprechaun. “Your shoelace is undone, bold man. Command me to tie it up.”

“Tie up my shoe, you black-hearted, villainous little anatomy!” thundered Tim O’Halloran, and the leprechaun did so. Then he jumped to his feet and skipped about the room.

“Free! Free!” he piped. “Free at last! For I’ve served the servants of servants and the doom has no power on me longer. Free, Tim O’Halloran! O’Halloran’s Luck is free!”

Tim O’Halloran stared at him, dumb; and even as he stared, the creature seemed to change. He was small, to be sure, and boyish—but you could see the unchancy look leave him and the Christian soul come into his eyes. That was a queer thing to be seen, and a great one too.

“Well,” said Tim O’Halloran in a sober voice, “I’m glad for you, Rory. For now you’ll be going back to Clonmelly, no doubt—and faith, you’ve earned the right.”

The leprechaun shook his head.

“Clonmelly’s a fine, quiet place,” said he, “but this country’s bolder. I misdoubt it’s something in the air—you will not have noticed it, but I’ve grown two inches and a half since first I met you, and I feel myself growing still. No, it’s off to the mines of the West I am, to follow my natural vocation—for they say there are mines out there you could mislay all Dublin Castle in—and wouldn’t I like to try! But speaking of that, Tim O’Halloran,” he said, “I was not quite honest with you about the pot of gold. You’ll find your share behind the door when I’ve gone. And now good day and long life to you!”

“But, man dear,” said Tim O’Halloran, “ ’tis not good-by!” For it was then he realized the affection that was in him for the queer little creature.

“No, ’tis not good-by,” said the leprechaun. “When you christen your first son, I’ll be at his cradle, though you may not see me—and so with your sons’ sons and their sons, for O’Halloran’s luck’s just begun. But we’ll part for the present now. For now I’m a Christian soul, I’ve work to do in the world.”

“Wait a minute,” said Tim O’Halloran. “For you would not know, no doubt, and you such a new soul. And no doubt you’ll be seeing the priest—but a layman can do it in an emergency and I think this is one. I dare not have you leave me—and you not even baptized.”

And with that he made the sign of the cross and baptized the leprechaun. He named him Rory Patrick.

“ ’Tis not done with all the formalities,” he said at the end, “but I’ll defend the intention.”

“I’m grateful to you,” said the leprechaun. “And if there was a debt to be paid, you’ve paid it back and more.”

And with that he was gone somehow, and Tim O’Halloran was alone in the room. He rubbed his eyes. But there was a little sack behind the door, where the leprechaun had left it—and Kitty was coming in with a slice of cake on a plate.

“Well, Tim,” she said, “and where’s that young nephew of yours?”

So he took her into his arms and told her the whole story. And how much of it she believed, I do not know. But there’s one remarkable circumstance. Ever since then, there’s always been one Rory O’Halloran in the family, and that one luckier than the lave. And when Tim O’Halloran got to be a railroad president, why, didn’t he call his private car “The Leprechaun”? For that matter, they said, when he took his business trips there’d be a small boyish-looking fellow would be with him now and again. He’d turn up from nowhere, at some odd stop or other, and he’d be let in at once, while the great of the railroad world were kept waiting in the vestibule. And after a while, there’d be singing from inside the car.