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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The High Calling, by Charles M. Sheldon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The High Calling
+
+Author: Charles M. Sheldon
+
+Release Date: August 14, 2008 [EBook #26309]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGH CALLING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Carl D. DuBois
+
+
+
+
+THE HIGH CALLING
+
+BY
+CHARLES M. SHELDON
+AUTHOR OF "IN HIS STEPS," ETC.
+
+HODDER & STOUGHTON
+NEW YORK
+GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1911,
+By George H. Doran Company
+
+
+
+TO MY SON
+MERRIAM WARD
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+The story, "The High Calling," was written at two different periods, in
+1909 and 1910, and was read at two different periods, chapter by
+chapter, to the young people in my church, on successive Sunday
+evenings. The main purpose of the story is to illustrate the value of
+the average American family training and the final victory of the
+spiritual ideals over material or physical attractions. The final
+outcome of the struggle which Helen Douglas makes between her natural
+inclination to follow a life of ease and luxury, and the real training
+which she has received at home, is the picture of what is going on in
+the best American homes to-day. It has been my hope that the story would
+help many young people to realize the great difference between the
+finest type of manhood and womanhood, and that which in some cases has
+grown up on American soil, where the standards have been low and the
+ideals have been obscured by fashion, by false home training, and by
+superficial ideas of happiness. In other words, my purpose has been to
+describe, in the main characters in the book, the manly heroic type of
+Christian struggle and final victory which realizes the response which
+the higher nature makes to the call from above. This idea which runs
+through the story gives it its name of "The High Calling." As my own
+young people gave the story a beautiful reception in their listening to
+it, it is my earnest hope that if the book has the good fortune to find
+a larger audience it may reach more young people with the same message.
+
+Topeka, Kansas, 1911. CHARLES M. SHELDON.
+
+
+THE HIGH CALLING
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+PAUL DOUGLAS and his wife, Esther, were holding a serious council
+together over their older boy, Walter.
+
+"I can't help feeling a little disappointment over the way things are
+going. I did so want the boy to come into the office with me."
+
+"I know," said Esther, with a grave smile, "but he seems to have his
+mind made up. I don't think we ought to thwart him if he is made to do
+that for his lifework."
+
+"No," said Paul, looking at Esther with great thoughtfulness, "I have
+always believed that a boy should have freedom to choose his lifework.
+But what puzzles me is where did Walter get his leaning toward
+electrical engineering? None of my ancestors, so far as I know, ever had
+the slightest tendency that way, and the Darcys for generations have
+been business men.
+
+"I was in the boy's room the other day," continued Paul, meditatively,
+"and he had the floor and his bed and the chairs covered with models of
+electrical machines. I was afraid to sit down or lean up against
+anything for fear it would go off and give me a shock or something.
+While I was asking questions, what did the boy do but start a
+contrivance that hung from the ceiling and it reached down a metallic
+arm that grabbed my hat off and began to comb my hair. I yelled,
+naturally, or unnaturally, and tried to get loose, but another
+contrivance shot out from the wall somewhere and clutched me by the leg
+and began to make frantic gestures at my shoes like a wild boot-blacking
+emporium. I decided to stand still rather than run the risk of getting
+hit somewhere else. Meanwhile Walter was laughing so hard he couldn't
+answer my emphatic request to know what the thing was going to do. He
+finally explained that it was a new device he was experimenting with to
+give the patient head treatment for nervous prostration, and black his
+shoes while he waited. I made him turn off the power and then I
+cautiously backed out of the room and gave him my testimonial on the
+efficacy of his invention adapted to give anyone nervous prostration and
+general paralysis who never had them."
+
+Esther laughed, the same good, generous, contagious laugh she had always
+known, and Paul had always loved to hear.
+
+"Walter is a genius. I always said he would make his mark."
+
+"I was afraid he would make several on me before I could get away," said
+Paul, smiling. "Well, of course, we have really decided to let the boy
+go to Burrton. If he is going to have a thorough course in electricity,
+I want him to have the best there is."
+
+"I shall miss him dreadfully. O, dear, my darling!" Esther suddenly
+yielded to a good cry that somewhat upset Paul. Only once in a while in
+their married life had Esther given way to such a display of feeling.
+But before Paul went down to the office that morning she had dried her
+tears and with a hopeful smile prepared to make out a list of Walter's
+school necessities for the eight months he would be away from home.
+
+Walter was twenty years old, tall and slim, with his father's features
+and his mother's voice, and a very strong liking for all scientific and
+mechanical work. He had within the year graduated from the Milton high
+school with honors in the physics department, and had at once set his
+ambition on going to Burrton Electrical and Engineering School, the best
+school of its kind in the East. His father had made him a tempting offer
+to come into the _News_ office, but the boy had frankly told his father
+that if there was anything in the world he disliked it was a newspaper.
+So Paul, with a sigh of disappointment, had yielded to the inevitable
+and agreed to the Burrton plan, simply stipulating that Walter, who was
+disposed to be luxurious in his tastes, should make up his mind to a
+school course stripped of unnecessary expenses and devoted to the main
+thing.
+
+"I am willing, of course, to help you with your education," he said, in
+a very plain, frank talk with Walter when the decision was finally made.
+"But I expect you to do something for yourself. The Burrton catalogue
+mentions stewardships which students are allowed to choose in part
+payment of tuition. Isn't that so?"
+
+Walter looked annoyed and answered his father sullenly.
+
+"Yes, but the stewards at Burrton have to wash dishes and mess around
+the clubhouses doing odd jobs for the other fellows. It cuts them out of
+pretty much all the best social life of the school."
+
+Paul looked at his oldest boy indignantly. If there was anything he ever
+feared it was that his children would grow up to despise manual labor
+and shrink from it.
+
+"Do you mean to say you are not willing to do your honest part at honest
+work to get through school? Or do you mean to say, Walter, that the
+social part of the school is so important that you are going to make it
+count in your program for an education?"
+
+"No." Walter looked anxious and his tone was changed. "I--well--I
+naturally don't want to be rated in a class below the rest--I------"
+
+"Do you mean that the stewards at Burrton are looked down on for doing
+physical work? I understood you to say that Jack Alwin said every fellow
+at Burrton stood on his merits, and that real scholarship really
+counted. If I thought there was a spirit of toadyism or aristocracy at
+Burrton, I wouldn't let you go there."
+
+"They are measured by scholarship," said Walter, in alarm now, lest his
+father would decide to withdraw his consent to the Burrton plan. "But,
+of course, if I go in with the stewards I can't expect to go out much,
+or--but I'm willing to apply for a place, father, I want to go. Don't
+change the plan, will you?"
+
+"I want you to go, Walter. But I don't want you ever to think that the
+work of your hand is any less honorable than the work of your head. What
+little you do won't hurt you at all. And it makes no difference what
+others think. If you go to Burrton, you go to get an education. And
+perhaps one of the best parts of it will be in the training you receive
+outside of the classroom."
+
+So Walter's ambition, so far as his school was concerned, was finally
+met, though secretly he chafed at the conditions imposed by his father,
+and when the day came for him to say goodbye and start on his journey of
+fifteen hundred miles he was not as happy as he should have been,
+anticipating his position in the school and feeling restless over the
+task it imposed. At the same time he was so eager to get on with his
+engineering that he would endure many hard and disagreeable experiences.
+Paul and Esther took leave of him at the station with a feeling, which
+they kept from being too sad on the boy's account, that he was going to
+face a new world and meet some overturning events in the course of the
+school year.
+
+Helen Douglas, their second child, was eighteen, just entering Hope
+College, and beginning to face some questions that gave Paul and Esther
+much thought. She was a girl blessed with her mother's vigorous health,
+so overflowing with vitality that her mother said to her one day,
+"Helen, if you feel so strong and outbreaking, I don't know but I will
+let Jane go and put you in the kitchen."
+
+"That's all right, mother," replied Helen, calmly. "You know I am going
+to be a professor of domestic science and I would just as soon practice
+on you and father and the boys as anybody. But I feel so well all the
+time I believe I would like to join a circus."
+
+"Helen Douglas!" Esther said, shocked at her daughter's remark. And then
+she thanked God for the girl's abounding life. "There are so many sickly
+girls and women, Helen, you cannot be thankful enough for one of the
+most beautiful of all things, health."
+
+"I am thankful, mother. You know I never even had a headache. Isn't it
+fine to be so well that you don't know what to do?"
+
+Mrs. Douglas, however, had some serious thoughts of Helen, and at times
+she was anticipating possible sorrow for this creature with the strength
+and grace of some forest animal. Helen was careless and thoughtless in
+many ways, selfish and arbitrary in the home circle, although in many
+cases she was quickly penitent and ready to acknowledge her faults. She
+was inclined to be very critical and openly judged everyone, from the
+minister to her own father and mother. She was constantly calling Louis
+to account for his failings, and one of Mrs. Douglas's daily crosses was
+due to the habit Helen had of provoking Louis, partly in a spirit of
+banter, partly because Louis offended the girl's nice feelings about
+certain customs and courtesies in polite society. There were great
+possibilities in Helen for a rich and rare womanhood, but many a hard
+fight ahead for her in the overcoming, and many humiliations perhaps for
+her sensitive soul before she reached the place of victory.
+
+Louis was fifteen, just entered high school, a little backward with his
+studies on account of trouble with his eyes and a nervous attack which
+left him somewhat irritable and timid. He was an average boy, a great
+lover of his mother and a hero-worshipper toward his father. He was a
+handsome-looking boy who bade fair to develop into a business career of
+some sort, but with doubtful habits which would be settled one way or
+another as his nervous physical condition improved or grew worse. Paul
+watched him closely and counselled much with Esther over Louis,
+realising more as the boy grew that his case was one which called for
+much wisdom and care.
+
+Two months after Walter's departure his father received a letter from
+him which he read aloud to Esther in the family circle. It was Paul's
+custom to take the whole family into his confidence in all matters that
+belonged to all, and the habit was one that strengthened the ties of
+comradeship among them.
+
+"Dear father and mother and all," Walter wrote, using a phrase common to
+the Douglas children whenever they had been away from home. "I'm having
+the time of my life at Burrton and thought you might like to hear about
+it.
+
+"There are about five hundred in the school and some pretty fine
+fellows. They come from fifteen different States and of course I haven't
+met many of them yet and don't expect to for some time.
+
+"I can't say that I like the steward business. I have to wait on the
+swells at one of the fraternity houses and I don't like it. Father, I
+wish you would let me do something else for my expenses. I can't
+complain of any treatment of the fellows. They are all civil enough, but
+I can't help feeling the difference between us. You see some of the
+fellows come from swell families in New York and Pittsburgh and
+Philadelphia. Six of the tables waited on have suites at the club house
+that beat anything I ever saw. Their furniture is hand carved and one of
+the fellows has paintings in his room that cost ten thousand dollars.
+Half the upper classmen keep automobiles and dog kennels and spend a lot
+of money on wine suppers and spreads. You can see for yourself that I'm
+not in the same class with these fellows, but it must be fine to have
+money and not have to scheme how to get on.
+
+"As for the work, I enjoy the plant all right. There isn't anything like
+this equipment anywhere else. Lots of the fellows are here to fit
+themselves for work on the Isthmus. A good many of them are going to
+fail out on the finals. For all it's a rich man's son's school it's only
+fair to say the standard is kept up and I am told that over fifty failed
+to get through last half. I have been fortunate enough to get a position
+under the assistant foreman in the coil shop and he has been kind enough
+to say that if I keep on as I have begun I may have a place in the new
+experiment division just planned under Wallace, the government expert
+recently sent here. If I can get this position it will carry a
+scholarship and in that case I suppose you will not object to my
+dropping the stewardship. It takes an awful lot of time and I don't like
+it a little bit.
+
+"There is fine boating here on the Wild River and we have a great crew
+this season. We row against Brainerd Technology School three months from
+now. Nothing else is talked about just now. There isn't much doubt about
+our winning. Everyone knows that Carlisle, our stroke, is the strongest
+man that ever sat in a Burrton boat and we have never had such a crew
+for team work since the big race in 1891. There is lots of betting on
+the game and the odds are four to one on Burrton.
+
+"Now father, you won't object, will you, to my dropping the steward work
+if I get the Wallace appointment. I have almost no time for anything now
+but digging. I don't care to be known just as 'dig,' but that is all I
+am so far. The scholarship will pay me twice as much as the work I'm
+doing and give me leisure for something besides digging. I haven't had
+time to be homesick, but I would give a lot to see you all.
+
+"With much love from the constant 'digger.'
+                        "WALTER DOUGLAS."
+
+Paul's reply to this was brief, and characteristic of his insight where
+Walter was concerned. After assuring him that he had no objections to
+his leaving the stewardship in case the scholarship was open to him, he
+wrote:
+
+"I notice you speak several times with more or less disparagement of the
+fact that you are getting to be a 'dig.'
+
+"I understand by this word is meant that the student is actually
+applying himself with unusual enthusiasm or persistence in his studies.
+I also understand that it is in some schools a term of reproach and that
+a 'dig' is regarded as a slow fellow who has made the mistake of
+supposing a college is a place where scholarships may be acquired.
+
+"Now, I don't want you to miss the social side of college life and all
+the jolly things that rightly belong to it. But if it comes to a choice
+between being a 'dig' and being a 'jolly fellow' in college, you need
+never hesitate concerning which one of these two we want you to be. The
+main object of a college course is an all-around manhood and a fitting
+of yourself for the best possible service in the world. The world does
+not need jolly good fellows so much as it needs persons who know how to
+do things, and do them right, and do them when they are most needed.
+Wine suppers don't add anything to the happiness or well-being of the
+world. And I hope you will live to see the time, if I don't, when the
+American college will cease to be a soft retreat for rich men's sons and
+be a real training school for service. Service is the great word, my
+boy. No man is truly educated who does not have that word at the center
+of both his heart and his head.
+
+"I inclose a check for a hundred dollars and leave it to your judgment
+as to its use. I want you to have all that rightfully goes with the
+college course, and I hope you can get the scholarship if that will mean
+for you more leisure for all-around development. But I don't think the
+work you have done so far has hurt you any.
+
+"All send love; your father,
+                        "PAUL DOUGLAS."
+
+Esther felt relieved to know Paul had sent Walter some money. She had
+feared the boy was working too hard.
+
+"Not a bit," said Paul, stoutly. "The boys that work their way through
+are not hurt by it. Walter is perfectly well and strong. He is able to
+stand it."
+
+"His tastes are very refined," murmured Esther. "I can understand how he
+feels about waiting on the table."
+
+"Waiting on the table is a great business," said Paul. "What would
+happen to the old world if everybody now waiting on tables should refuse
+to do it any more? It would disarrange our civilisation more than a
+universal war. There is nothing finer or more needed than waiting on
+tables."
+
+But there was one phrase in Walter's letter that Paul dwelt over after
+he had gone back to the office. Walter had written of the luxury in the
+rooms of the rich fellows, evidently with some spirit of envy, and
+closed his brief comment by saying:
+
+"You can see for yourself I am not in the same class with these fellows,
+but it must be fine to have money and not have to scheme how to get on."
+
+Paul had a perfect horror of money-loving, of soft and toadying habits,
+of the worship of style and society, and nonsense of high life
+generally. Nothing cut him deeper at heart than the feeling, as Walter
+grew up, that the boy had a streak in his character somewhere of the
+very thing that his father detested. It was this knowledge of a weakness
+in Walter that led to Paul's great desire to give the boy another
+Standard, to impress on him the nobility of labor and the disgrace of
+getting something for nothing. The one thing so far that was saving
+Walter from becoming a victim to his luxurious tastes was his real love
+of scientific knowledge and his desire to make of himself a first-class
+engineer. Paul counted on this factor to keep Walter steady to the main
+thing, but he realised as he read the boy's letter that there were
+influences in the Burrton school powerfully pulling him in other
+directions, away from the simple and plain habits he had always known at
+home.
+
+Walter's next letter acknowledged with much evident gratitude the
+receiving of the money his father had sent and spoke again of the
+scholarship opening. That matter, however, would not be settled until a
+trying out of several applicants for the honour.
+
+Two months later Paul received a short letter from Walter, written
+evidently in some bitterness, saying the scholarship had been finally
+given to an upper class man, "one with a pull," Walter declared, adding,
+"I shall have to keep at the steward business, I suppose. I can't make
+much more than my board at it, father, and the midterm tuition is due in
+two weeks. I haven't money enough to settle. My laboratory fees have
+been doubled since Wallace came in with his expert division work and
+expenses generally are heavy."
+
+Paul replied by sending Walter another check and writing as
+encouragingly to him as possible. Walter answered briefly and seemed to
+be feeling somewhat more reconciled to the disappointment connected with
+the scholarship matter.
+
+Two weeks later Paul had a letter from the publisher of one of his
+books, asking him to come East on business relating to the book. He
+decided hastily to go on and found he could visit Burrton school on the
+way. He wrote Walter of his intention, giving him the date of the day he
+should probably reach Burrton. Esther, Helen, and Louis sent many
+special messages and Paul was glad of an opportunity to see Walter in
+his school surroundings.
+
+When he reached Burrton it happened to be the date of the great boat
+race with the Brainerd Technology School. For several stations before
+the train reached Burrton, crowds came aboard for the college town. When
+Paul reached Burrton an immense and yelling mob filled the station and
+swarmed out to the racing course at the meadows, below the school
+grounds.
+
+Walter was watching for his father, and in the excitement at the time
+Paul did not note what he afterward could not help marking. When the two
+were finally seated on the great bank of seats at the end of the river
+course, just before the crews were given the signal to start, Paul
+thought to himself he had never seen Walter so nervous or so ill at
+ease. He attributed it all at first to the general excitement, but the
+more he looked at Walter and the more he watched his actions, the less
+he could account for them, even making allowance for all the unusual
+outbursts of hilarious feeling on the part of two great schools met in
+rivalry.
+
+"I never thought about the date of the boat race, Walter, when I left
+home. I'll be glad to see it. I haven't seen a boat race since the
+Harvard-Yale contest in ninety-three."
+
+"It's going to be a great race, father. We're sure to win, don't you
+think? Carlisle is a power. We can't lose, can we?"
+
+"You know more about it than I do, of course."
+
+"But they say Brainerd has a great crew. I don't believe they can beat
+us, though, do you?"
+
+"I don't know a thing about it, Walter. Naturally, I'll yell for Burrton
+with you."
+
+"We'll win, I think. Yes, I'm sure we will."
+
+Walter grew more and more nervous as the time slipped away and the
+signal was hoisted up the river that in five minutes the race would be
+on. His father looked at him curiously, conscious that the boy was
+unduly excited over something more than the race.
+
+But when the signal went up, Douglas was absorbed with all the rest of
+the howling, jumping, gesticulating crowd of undergraduates.
+
+A gun went off up the river. The white smoke puff rose gracefully above
+the trees on the bank. The course was a straight-away three miles. Two
+thin black streaks side by side on the water began to move toward the
+red and green goal posts, and the great race was on. The minute the
+starting gun was fired, Paul saw Walter lean forward and put his face in
+his hands. He then lifted his head, put both hands on the rail of the
+seat in front of him, and gazed up the river with a look so intense that
+even the faces about him by contrast were calm. Paul found himself
+looking oftener at Walter than at the race. From where they sat it was
+impossible to tell which crew was in the lead. The black streaks up the
+river grew more distinct and another gun fired sent the news along the
+course that the first mile of the race had been covered, with Burrton
+slightly in the lead.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+WHEN the gun marked the second mile of the race there was not a quarter
+of a boat's length distance between Burrton and Brainerd, but Burrton
+was leading. By a system of flag signals, the spectators on the
+grandstand at the end of the course were informed of the relative
+situation of the two crews at every quarter mile. Both crews were
+apparently in good condition and rowing in splendid form. The last mile
+was always the hardest fought. As the boats began to enter the last
+quarter of this mile, the excitement rose to the highest pitch. First
+Burrton made a spurt that put them a boat's length ahead of their
+rivals. Then Brainerd responded to its coxswain's call and closed up the
+gap, gradually lapping its bow past the stern of the Burrton shell. Then
+Burrton drew away again for half a boat's length. Brainerd doggedly
+clung to that position for a short distance and then began slowly to
+fall behind, as the boats shot into the last eighth of the mile. Only a
+hundred yards now, and the race was won for Burrton. Pandemonium reigned
+on the seats at the goal post end of the course. Shouts of "Carlisle!
+Carlisle!" rose up through the din of megaphones and screech of whistles
+from the launches. Paul looked at Walter. The boy had risen, flung his
+hat up anywhere and was waving his arms like a maniac, screaming out the
+name of Carlisle, the crack stroke of Burrton. And then, without a
+second's warning, the big stroke, the hero of the Burrton crew, whose
+name was on a thousand tongues, suddenly bent forward and collapsed over
+his oar. The oar itself crashed into the line and the Burrton boat
+lurched over on the opposite side.
+
+"Row on, row on!" screamed the Burrton coxswain. "Only ten yards to the
+green and red post."
+
+But Brainerd shot by grimly, her bow slipped past the crippled shell and
+across the line, a winner by more than a length, and the race was over.
+
+For the first few seconds the Burrton crowd did not realise what had
+happened. The Burrton's shell swung up sideways to the referee's boat
+and the crew sat sullenly stooping over their oars. Carlisle lay in a
+huddled heap, a sorry spectacle for a school hero, while the coxswain
+scooped up handfuls of water and flung them over him.
+
+Then a hubbub of questions rent the air.
+
+"How did it happen?"
+
+"Are we really beaten?"
+
+"Did Brainerd foul?"
+
+"Was Carlisle doped?"
+
+"What was it? Half a length?"
+
+"Ours by a fluke."
+
+"Who was to blame?"
+
+Added to all the rest, Paul was smitten with the torrent of profanity
+that burst from scores of Burrton men as the truth that they were beaten
+began to come forcibly home to them. Paul had lived long enough to know
+that the passion of gambling always rouses the worst exhibitions of
+human selfishness. But it was a new revelation to him to see these
+smartly dressed rich men's sons cursing God and profaning the name of
+Christ because they had bet heavily on their boat crew and lost. In the
+midst of all their oaths the name of Carlisle came in for heavy scoring.
+From the heights of the most extravagant hero-worship he had suddenly
+tumbled into this cesspool of profane unpopularity. All of which goes to
+prove any number of useful things, among them the necessity, if you are
+going to be stroke oar of a boat crew, it is best if you would retain
+your popularity to keep in training until the season is over, and even
+then it is not certain that you will always escape the other extreme of
+being overtrained.
+
+But Paul's attention was speedily directed to Walter. The boy looked
+perfectly dazed as the final result of the race broke upon him. After
+two or three eager questions put wildly to those nearest him, he had
+sunk upon the seat, and when his father spoke to him he did not at first
+seem to hear. Then he roused up and slowly went down off the stand and
+walked along by his father like one going to execution.
+
+It was a characteristic of Paul Douglas to go straight at a difficulty
+or a question and make a frank and honest attempt to clear away all
+mystery and trouble.
+
+He saw plainly that some unusual thing was agitating Walter. The boy was
+under some great stress of feeling and could not conceal it.
+
+So when the two were back in Walter's room, Paul at once began to seek
+the cause of the boy's trouble.
+
+"What is the matter with you, Walter? You have not been yourself all
+day."
+
+Walter was very white, and what he said to his father's question was so
+inaudible that Paul could not understand it.
+
+"What is the matter with you, Walter? Are you sick? Tell me," said his
+father sharply.
+
+"I can't, father, I can't," Walter stammered and looked so wretched that
+his father said more gently:
+
+"Don't be afraid of me. Speak out if you are in any trouble. I want to
+help you. Don't you know that, Walter?"
+
+"Yes, but------"
+
+"Has it any thing to do with money matters? Tell me."
+
+"Yes, I can't! Can't do it, father. I don't mean----"
+
+And then Walter broke down completely. He laid his head down on his arms
+and cried hysterically. Paul sat looking at him sternly. For the first
+time that day an inkling of the truth began to dawn on him. At first it
+did not seem possible to him that his boy could do such a thing. It was
+so incredible to him at first that he sat silently eyeing the bowed head
+with an entirely new and bitter feeling.
+
+When he finally spoke it was with a slow and steady measure of speech
+revealing great self-restraint.
+
+"Did you bet on the race? Is that what's the matter?"
+
+Walter lifted up his head and looked with a terrified face at his
+father.
+
+"O father, don't be hard on me! I felt so sure we would win! I didn't
+see any risk! And all the fellows in Burrton bet on the race. A fellow
+isn't considered loyal to the school unless he bets something."
+
+"How much did you lose?"
+
+"I put up that last one hundred you sent me and fifty more."
+
+"When do you have to pay?"
+
+"I suppose at once. That's the rule."
+
+"What other debts have you?"
+
+Walter hesitated; then he said feebly, "I owe five week's board and some
+items at the men's furnishing."
+
+"How much will it all come to?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"About how much?"
+
+"About seventy-five dollars."
+
+"When do you have to pay that?"
+
+"There's no hurry. It can wait."
+
+"Do you mean to say that a bet, a gambling debt, an obligation made on a
+dishonourable basis, takes precedence in time over honest claims for
+food and clothing?"
+
+"It's the rule here in Burrton," said Walter sullenly. "If a bet is not
+settled at once the fellows lose their standing. The same is true at all
+the eastern schools. You have got to meet debts of honour promptly."
+
+"Debts of dishonour, you mean."
+
+"That isn't the standard here, father. The standard at Burrton is
+different from the one at home."
+
+"I see it is," replied Paul, drily. "But the one at home is------" he
+paused, rose from his seat and went over by the window and stood there
+looking out over the school campus.
+
+Paul Douglas had had in his fifty years of life many interesting and
+profoundly moving experiences, but it is doubtful if in all his life he
+had faced anything which stirred him so deeply as this. His high
+standard of conduct made him loathe the entire gambling transaction. It
+was agony to him to find that his own son was swept off his feet by a
+custom which had nothing except common custom to excuse it. Above all,
+Paul felt the bitterness that comes to a father when he realises that
+the careful teaching of years has been deliberately disobeyed or
+ignored. There was a mingling of bitterness and shame and anger and
+sorrow and heartache in Paul that Walter could not possibly understand
+as he sat there looking dully at his father's broad back and wondering
+what his father would do.
+
+After what seemed like an hour, Paul turned around.
+
+"Give me an itemised account of your obligations outside of your
+gambling expenses."
+
+"I don't call it gambling to bet on the races," said Walter half
+defiantly.
+
+"It make no difference what you call it," said Paul sternly. "What is
+all betting but trying to get something for nothing, and what is that
+but gambling? Every boy in Burrton who bet on the race is a gambler?"
+
+"The authorities never say anything against it," said Walter sullenly.
+"The president knows that thousands of dollars are put up at every race
+and he never has said a word about it."
+
+"We will not argue about it," said Paul coldly. "Give your accounts,
+your honest accounts, with the tradesmen here and then pack up your
+things."
+
+"O father, you don't mean------"
+
+"Pack up your things. We leave for Milton in the morning."
+
+Walter took out of a drawer the bills which had accumulated there and
+without a word handed them over to his father. Paul summed up and found
+a total of $81.
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Yes, except my tuition for this last half."
+
+"How much is that?"
+
+"Forty dollars."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'll settle this all up. You can begin packing while I am out."
+
+Paul took the bills and went out abruptly, not concealing from Walter,
+what was very apparent, that he was tremendously angry.
+
+He went to the various tradesmen and settled the accounts, went to the
+boarding place and paid the arrears and after some difficulty on account
+of the holiday, finally succeeded in settling the tuition at the school
+office.
+
+He then asked the way to the president's house, and on presenting
+himself at the door was invited to go into the reception room and wait
+for a few moments.
+
+The president was having a call from some old classmates who had come
+down to Burrton to see the race. When they went out, the president
+accompanied them to the door. Paul could not avoid hearing one of the
+visitors say, "I put up my last dollar on Burrton. May have to borrow to
+get out of town."
+
+"Don't borrow of me," said the president, laughing. "I've never been
+able to get back what you owed me at Cambridge."
+
+There was some jesting reply in the familiar language of old college
+chums and the visitors went out.
+
+The president came into the reception room and greeted Douglas heartily.
+He had heard of him, had read some of his stories and was glad he had a
+son at Burrton.
+
+"It's my son I came to see you about, President Davis," said Paul
+quietly, when he had returned the president's hearty greeting. "I am
+going to take him out of the school and I thought it was only fair to
+you that I tell you frankly why."
+
+"Going to take him out! I'm sorry to hear it."
+
+"But the atmosphere of Burrton does not seem to agree with my son." Paul
+frankly told the president the incident of Walter's bet and the
+consequences, without any care to hide the facts of his own intense
+convictions on the matter of betting which he mentioned several times as
+"gambling."
+
+President Davis listened gravely and before Paul was through, his face
+had reddened deeply more than once. Paul spoke very bluntly and it was
+plain to be seen that he was under a great stress of feeling in which
+was mingled a real, deep, strong anger, a part of which was directed
+against the Burrton school and its management.
+
+"And so," Paul said as he finished his statement, "I don't care to keep
+my son in an institution where the standards are so low that a gambling
+habit like betting is not even discouraged by the authorities."
+
+"How do you know it is not discouraged?"
+
+"My boy tells me that during his whole stay here he has not heard a word
+of disapproval or protest against this prevalent habit."
+
+The president turned to a bookcase near by and took down a small volume
+entitled "Chapel Talks." He opened it at a certain page and without a
+word pointed to a passage.
+
+Paul read it. "There is a prevalent idea in the school that in order to
+be loyal to Burrton the students must all stand together, no matter what
+is done by the student body. That idea is false and in the end it is
+harmful to the best interests of the school.
+
+"Take for example the custom of betting on the athletics and especially
+on the annual boat race. This is a custom which should be discouraged by
+every lover of the school. Betting is gambling; it is an attempt to get
+something for nothing. That attempt is destructive to morals and
+dangerous to character. The fact that many of the alumni who come to see
+the games bet on them is no reason why the undergraduates should bet on
+the games. I look to every student to discourage this practice and use
+his influence to help abolish a harmful and dangerous habit."
+
+Paul looked up from the reading and eyed the president with a new
+feeling of respect.
+
+"I beg pardon for judging you, sir, without knowing all the facts. But
+this volume was published over a year ago. My boy never heard these
+chapel talks. I take it that there has been nothing said about betting
+here for several months."
+
+"No, perhaps not," replied the president with some hesitation. "But the
+students generally know my views on the matter. That knowledge, however,
+does not stop the betting."
+
+"Why can't you put an end to it by forbidding it altogether?"
+
+In reply to Paul's question, President Davis smiled.
+
+"How much power do you think the president of an American college has,
+Mr. Douglas?"
+
+"Why, I suppose he has enough to stop things that are absolutely wrong."
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Douglas, but he has no such power. He may try to stop
+them, but his power to do so may be very limited. For a year the great
+president of Harvard, Dr. Charles Eliot, did his best to abolish or
+amend football in that university. As head of the institution he spoke
+out against the game, which he honestly believed to be brutal and
+demoralising. What was the result of his protest? It had no influence
+toward abolishing the game and very little, if any, toward modifying it.
+The fact is our colleges and universities are just now controlled in a
+large measure by the opinion of those who support them. In other words,
+the alumni in many colleges run the college, not the president or the
+officers. I may say to you frankly that such is the case at Burrton. Two
+of the visitors who were here a few minutes ago are really more
+influential with the board of trustees than I am. They are heavy
+contributors. One of them gave us a gymnasium last year. They are very
+fond of athletics. Both of them are betting men. It would be a very
+difficult task to regulate the athletics in Burrton in opposition to
+these alumni; so there you are, as to a president's influence. All this
+in confidence, Mr. Douglas."
+
+"It must be great fun to be president of a university," said Paul in
+disgust. "It seems to me if I were president of this school I should
+want to be president, especially in matters of conduct and morals."
+
+"You would see it differently if you were president," said Davis with a
+faint smile. "Among other difficulties that we face here is the fact
+that Burrton, being unusually well equipped for technical high-class
+preparation in electrical engineering, is a favorite school for the
+difficult sons of rich men who do not know how to get on elsewhere. We
+have on our hands the greatest of all problems--how to make useful men
+out of a class of individuals who from boyhood have been reared in
+habits of the most princely luxury and disregard of all rules of
+restraint. The fact that we don't toady to all these rich men is seen in
+the records, which show during the year over two hundred men suspended
+for failure to meet the Standard requirements. And as to the betting,
+Mr. Douglas, your boy has now learned his lesson and will not do that
+again. Hadn't you better reconsider? Will he find conditions any
+different or any better in any other school that you know? Do you know
+any college East or West where the student atmosphere is absolutely free
+from all evil customs and habits?"
+
+"I must confess I don't," said Paul, slowly. "I don't mind saying that
+this action of my son's has made me very angry. Still, I don't deny that
+it might have happened in any one of a dozen colleges in any part of the
+country. A large part of my grievance was because it seemed to me and,
+pardon me, seems yet, that the institution was to blame for keeping so
+still about these things, and doing so little to create a different
+moral Standard. But I'm not asking Burrton to take all the blame. My boy
+has got to take his punishment, and I don't know of a better one than to
+take him home."
+
+"I hope you won't resort to that measure," said the president,
+earnestly. "Your son has unusual talent. He holds the highest place in
+the shops for original research. Give him another chance. It is my
+opinion that he will not disappoint you again."
+
+"Perhaps not," answered Paul as he rose to go. "But I have about made up
+my mind."
+
+"I hope you'll change it," said the president as Paul went away.
+
+"Perhaps," answered Paul briefly.
+
+He walked slowly back to Walter's room, asking many questions as he went
+along. His talk with the president had given him another angle from
+which to judge the boy's conduct. He could not hide from himself that
+his heart was sore over the whole matter, because he had never dreamed
+that his own boy would fall before a temptation which he had so often
+heard his father condemn at home. Paul Douglas was humiliated, as a man
+always is when his children begin to show the bad habits he has been
+fond of criticising in other people's children. And he had not yet been
+able to find any reasonable excuse for Walter.
+
+When he went into the room he found Walter packing things up and
+evidently with no purpose of remonstrating or trying to change his
+father's decision.
+
+"There's a letter from mother," he said briefly as Paul came up to the
+table in the middle of the room.
+
+"You want me to read it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Paul sat down to read and Walter went on with his packing.
+
+"Dear Walter," Esther wrote, "I am so glad your father has this
+opportunity to visit you and I presume he is at Burrton now. You will
+have good times together and I am envying him the privilege. I have
+missed you, boy, more than you can imagine. But then you will never know
+how much your mother has depended on you here at home. You were always
+so thoughtful and kind, how can I help missing my eldest.
+
+"I have been thinking a good deal lately about the different standards
+that prevail in different places and I have no doubt you have noticed
+that some of the things we have always taught you here at home are not
+held by others in the school where you now are. I believe you will be
+able to decide fairly when it is necessary as to what is right and wrong
+and not allow the fact of a different Standard to confuse your judgment.
+I simply want you to know, Walter, that I have the utmost confidence in
+you. I am proud of my boy's ability. I expect you will make one of the
+finest engineers in the United States, and better yet, one of the finest
+men in the world.
+
+"What do you think has been the great event of the last week? Helen had
+a young man caller two nights ago. It was the oldest son of Judge
+Randolph on Chandos street. The boy is a little younger than Helen, I
+think. He called in a formal way and to hear him talk to Helen convulsed
+me. I finally had to retire, but Helen was furious with me after young
+Randolph went away. The child was very much disturbed and claims to
+despise the youth, etc. It was like the story I was reading the other
+day:
+
+"A young man had been calling now and then on a young lady, when one
+night as he sat in the parlour waiting for her to come down, her mother
+entered the room instead, and asked him in a very grave, stern way what
+his intentions were. He turned very red and was about to stammer some
+incoherent reply when suddenly the young lady called down from the head
+of the stairs: 'Mamma, mamma, that is not the one.'
+
+"But, oh dear. Must I realise 'old age is creeping on apace' when my
+girl begins to have gentlemen callers? Helen will have many admirers.
+She is a girl who has very decided views and is very frank to express
+them. Now don't tease her when you write her, for this is in confidence.
+You must not betray me.
+
+"Louis is doing very well now at school. His headaches trouble him some.
+I am giving him a course of careful training. He was much interested in
+the set of models you sent him. It was good of you to remember him. He
+admires you vastly. Don't forget that, boy, will you?
+
+"You must come home for the holidays. We want the family all together
+then. Make your plans accordingly.
+
+"All send love, and most of all, your Mother."
+
+Paul finished the letter and laid it down. He sat there for a while in
+silence. Walter did not venture to break it. Finally Paul said: "Walter,
+I've been thinking over this affair and perhaps I have a new look at it.
+I want to tell you about it."
+
+A light came into Walter's face which had been fixed and dogged and he
+got up from in front of his trunk where he had been kneeling and came up
+to the table.
+
+"Sit down there," said Paul gravely. Walter sat down opposite his
+father, and the two, father and son, looked at each other earnestly
+across the table.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PAUL DOUGLAS was trying to think of his own boyhood and his temptations
+as he faced his own son on that memorable afternoon. His anger at the
+boy had almost subsided. The feeling that remained was a feeling of
+grief and fear mingled at the anticipation of a failure on Walter's part
+to realise the grave nature of the crisis through which he was passing.
+
+"I've been thinking over all this, Walter," Paul began slowly, "and I am
+willing you should remain here on certain conditions."
+
+"Oh, father, I'll do anything," Walter began impulsively.
+
+"Let me state them," his father went on gravely. "They may seem hard to
+you. But I'm older than you and have a right to expect obedience if the
+terms are just.
+
+"In the first place I shall expect you to earn the amount you have
+incurred with your gambling and repay me. Is that fair?"
+
+"Yes," Walter spoke, wincing at his father's use of the word. "I wish
+you would not say 'gambling' father. It was a friendly wager. It is the
+regular college custom."
+
+"I do not care what you call it or what the custom is here," said Paul,
+his anger beginning to flame up. "The wager, the custom, the whatever
+you call it, is gambling. It is gambling as much as any custom at Monte
+Carlo or any of the gambling halls of Europe. The principle is the same
+always; it is the desire and the hope of getting something for nothing,
+a thing totally contrary to every divine law of life. Don't you see it,
+Walter? Do you think I would be so much disturbed about the matter if it
+were of little account?"
+
+"No, I suppose not."
+
+Paul looked at the boy with growing earnestness. It was not reassuring
+to consider the possibility of his boy growing up with blunted ideals,
+with feeble convictions and a faint sense of the eternal difference
+between sharp cut right and wrong. The most sorrowful experience in Paul
+Douglas's life might be coming to him at this time if he should find his
+own son lacking in the real essentials of moral earnestness.
+
+"Then," he went on, "another condition of your remaining here is that
+you promise me never to bet on anything again."
+
+Walter interrupted eagerly, "You don't need to worry over that. I've
+learned my lesson. You don't think I feel especially drawn towards that
+sort of thing, do you?"
+
+"I hope not," said Paul with a feeling of relief. There was a pause.
+Then Paul said as he picked up Esther's letter, "You will write mother.
+I'll leave it to you to tell her what you think you ought. But she is
+building great castles on your estate, my boy. Don't disappoint her,
+will you?"
+
+"No, father, I won't," Walter replied in a low voice. There was another
+pause and then Paul said cheerfully, "I must go back on the night train.
+It's only fair to you to say that President Davis paid you a fine
+compliment speaking of your rank in the engineering department. We all
+expect great things of you in that line." Walter coloured with pleasure
+at the statement.
+
+"They've got a great equipment here, father. That was the first reason I
+felt awfully bad to leave. I don't believe there is another school like
+Burrton for electrical engineering."
+
+Paul rose to go and Walter went with him down to the station. Paul's
+parting word was affectionate and hopeful.
+
+"Do your best, boy, and don't forget to pray."
+
+Walter remembered that brief but serious appeal a long time. His father
+had not often talked religious matters with him. At the same time Walter
+had grown up with a strong impression of his father's own religious
+character and without much having been said he had always had the
+deepest respect for his father's splendid Christian character. That same
+evening he wrote home to his mother. Under the influence of his father's
+treatment of his conduct he made a full and frank confession of his
+actions but at one point he could not help saying, "I told father I did
+not feel as if the bet was such an awful thing on account of it being a
+regular custom here at Burrton. You know I've written before about the
+Standard being different. But father was all upset by it. Mother, I
+don't think I have any temptation to gamble as a regular thing, and I
+have promised never to bet again, but you know I like nice things and I
+wanted the money so I wouldn't have to bone quite so hard. Father is
+good to me to let me stay on. I don't know what I would have done if he
+had taken me out. There is no other school quite up to this for
+equipment and I'm not fit for anything else. I'm working on a new lamp
+for city street lighting. We are allowed so many hours a week for
+original study and research. I can't describe my work and you would not
+understand it if I did. But my problem is to find a way of making an
+electric arc light which will go without an expensive mechanism and be
+self-regulating without machinery. There is a German student in my class
+by the name of Felix Bauer who is working at the same problem. Bauer is
+a good friend of mine and we have our laboratory tables in the same
+number. Now, mother, you won't think I am altogether depraved, will you?
+I am planning to stick close to work from now on. I don't want to
+disappoint you and father and I don't believe I shall. But you will
+remember, won't you, that the Standard here is different from the one at
+home in many ways. For example, mother, most of the fellows talk very
+freely and even coarsely about girls, and a good many of the rich set
+have pictures of actresses in their rooms and tell stories about them
+that I can't repeat. All that disgusts me and I have never heard anyone
+utter any protest in a crowd where the stories are going around. You see
+the Standard is different here. And I told father of a number of other
+customs that are different from those we are used to at home. There is a
+different atmosphere about everything. I can't describe it exactly, but
+I can feel the difference. I don't believe there is very much of what we
+know at home as 'spiritual life.' There are some fine fellows here and
+some high ambitions, but the chapel service is all voluntary, and only a
+handful of fellows ever go unless some big gun comes to give a chapel
+talk, and then the president allows only fifteen minutes for the whole
+service.
+
+"What you wrote about Helen having a beau was funny. I can't imagine
+what Helen will do when the callers begin to come. Well, mother, I want
+you to think of me as too busy with my work to get into any more
+trouble. I am awfully interested, especially in the original problem--I
+believe I almost stumbled on the making of a successful arc light,
+without a regulating mechanism, a few days ago. I have been dreaming
+over it ever since and I am quite confident it can be done. Felix Bauer
+said the other day he thought he had it all right, but the plan escaped
+him. It's exciting, mother, to keep trying different combinations, not
+knowing any minute when you may hit on a new discovery. I hope Louis is
+behaving himself in his studies. I am sending him by mail a time switch
+that he asked me about.
+
+"Much love to all. Your affectionate son
+                                "WALTER."
+
+Esther read this letter over carefully twice, and then, as her habit
+was, answered it almost immediately. It was a part of her training of
+her children that she had frankly taken them into her confidence when
+they were little and had had the wisdom and courage to discuss with them
+the questions that were really vital to their bodies and minds. There
+was one reason Walter wrote as frankly to his mother as he did about
+everything, knowing she would understand exactly. And that was the
+reason his mother in her turn could write as she did in reply, entering
+fully into the boy's real life.
+
+She did not take much time to reproach him for the betting incident,
+believing that Paul had emphasised that quite strongly, but she did
+express the hope that her son would not be afraid to be independent of
+surroundings and stand on his own feet and have his own convictions, and
+then she went on to say: "One of the hardest things you will have to do
+all your life is to be independent. This will take more courage often
+than for a woman to be out of fashion. But there isn't a finer thing in
+all the world than an independent soul, one that knows the right and
+does it even if the whole world around is doing exactly the other thing.
+If the coarse stories you mention are told in your presence you don't
+have to join in the laugh over them. There is a number of ways in which
+you can clearly make those fellows understand your attitude in that
+matter and of course you have the right and privilege of guarding
+yourself from any talk of that sort in your own room. Your room is your
+castle. Guard it from impurity. I feel as if almost any kind of wrong
+could be excused in a young man who has the virtue of a pure heart and
+maintains constant respect for womankind. But, if I ever gave you any
+advice about the choice of a friend, I think I should be quite safe in
+saying to you, be very slow to accept into the sacred place of your
+friendship any young man who talks with impure lips of womanhood. Such a
+man is a blight on all he touches.
+
+"I trust you, Walter, to make the most of your opportunities and make us
+all proud of you. Success to the arc lamp. Write us the minute you
+succeed. Tell me more about the German schoolmate. We are interested in
+him and somehow I feel from the little you have told us of him that he
+is a fine young fellow.
+
+"Helen is very dignified about her callers. There is nothing more to
+tell about her."
+
+"All send love, most of all, mother."
+
+When Paul reached home he told Esther somewhat in detail the incidents
+of the boat race and his interview with the president. He was hopeful
+for Walter and believed the boy had learned his lesson and would not
+fail at that point again. But he could not understand the particular
+"streak," as he called it, in Walter's make up, which seemed to demand
+expensive and needless luxuries.
+
+"The boy had bought a very elaborate dresser. It was quartered oak and
+had a number of patent arrangements about it that made it unusually
+expensive. Walter confessed it cost him forty-seven dollars. This was
+one of the things he went in debt for. It seems he had become enamoured
+of just such a dresser in one of the rooms he had been caring for, a
+suite belonging to Van Shaw, the son of the steel magnate at Allworth.
+Of course, we want our son to go through school with all the comforts
+around him necessary for his proper culture and education. But I cannot
+see for the life of me how a forty-seven dollar quartered oak dresser is
+going to make any more of a man of him, especially when he goes in debt
+for it. I told him so and to my disappointment he took what I said
+rather badly. That is, he flared up some and seemed hurt at my criticism
+of his luxurious habits. But it isn't the luxurious tastes I object to
+so much as the reckless and inexcusable act of going in debt for such a
+thing; that is perfectly inexcusable. Where did Walter get his tastes,
+do you suppose?"
+
+"Oh, dear, I don't know," said Esther with a sigh. "You know Louis used
+to have just a streak in him. Perhaps some of my ancestors on father's
+side were French aristocrats before the revolution. You know the Darcys
+had estates in southern France in the sixteenth century. I don't believe
+any more than you do, Paul, that a forty-seven dollar dresser is at all
+necessary to Walter's education. He will have to learn better ways. We
+must not forget his splendid good qualities in other directions. He has
+a great many. I can't believe he is going to disappoint us."
+
+"No, I can't believe that," said Paul gravely. "But the boy has much to
+learn and I hope he will learn it without unnecessary suffering."
+
+It was this same week, two days after the receipt of his mother's
+letter, that Walter had an unusual and rather dramatic opportunity to
+act on his mother's advice, in the matter of asserting his rights about
+the kind of conversation he would permit in his own room.
+
+Walter had very little acquaintance with Van Shaw and the rich men's
+sons' set at Burrton. But incidentally it had come out during his chance
+meeting with Van Shaw that Walter's mother was a Darcy. The Darcys were
+at the time immensely influential at Allworth, Van Shaw's home. The fact
+that Walter was doing manual labor at Burrton did not affect his social
+standing very seriously, as at the time, there had not come into Burrton
+the social stigma against a student working his way through which had
+already come into several state universities and technical schools in
+this country. Besides, there was in all of Walter's make up that
+indefinable stamp of high breeding and refinement, helped on by an
+unusually attractive and handsome bearing, which made him look
+distinguished in any group of young men. When he had put on his best
+suit before the forty-seven dollar dresser and come out on the rare
+occasions when he could spare time for some function, he was in many
+ways the most elegant person in all the company.
+
+Van Shaw had gradually taken a peculiar attitude toward Walter, partly
+of recognition of his family and its antecedents and partly of
+patronage, as if he took for granted Walter would welcome his
+attentions. As a matter of fact, Walter resented Van Shaw's bearing
+toward him, but in his weakness and his leaning toward the upper society
+he envied, Walter endured what otherwise he would have been ashamed to
+acknowledge. On two occasions it had been a relief to Walter to be of
+help to Van Shaw in the electrical rooms. And on the particular occasion
+we are now to describe Van Shaw had come into Walter's room one evening
+to ask him about a point in connection with some original work which had
+to do with the winding of a single phase alternator.
+
+While they were talking over the problem and Walter was trying to make
+Van Shaw see how important it was to take account of the position
+induced in the several turns and the fact of the reaction of the
+armature current, half a dozen other fellows dropped in. Walter was
+quite popular and not infrequently eight or ten students might be found
+in his rooms, as on this occasion.
+
+Van Shaw was soon in possession of all Walter's knowledge on the
+subject, for he was bright enough mentally, and he carelessly sauntered
+over to the dresser and made a comment on it. Then he noticed a picture
+of Helen Douglas, a new one which Helen had sent Walter within the last
+few days.
+
+"Sister, isn't she?" asked Van Shaw.
+
+Walter nodded.
+
+"Mighty handsome girl. Hope she'll visit you some time," said Van Shaw,
+as he picked up the photograph and started to pass it around among the
+other fellows.
+
+There was something so offensive in the tone and manner of Van Shaw that
+Walter, who was standing near him, intercepted the picture before anyone
+in the room could take it. He put it back into its place without a word.
+Van Shaw laughed.
+
+"Say, maybe she isn't your sister, either. That makes me think," and
+before Walter could realise what he was doing, Van Shaw had begun a
+questionable story, while the group in the room sat and lounged around
+with looks of anticipated amusement.
+
+Walter Douglas will never forget that scene and his part in it if he
+lives a hundred years. Van Shaw was leaning up against the dresser, in a
+vain way mindful of the impression he was about to make, when Walter
+interrupted him. Walter was very pale and what he said came from lips
+that trembled with a mingling of anger, and fear of the result.
+
+"Wait! I would rather you would not tell that story in my room."
+
+Van Shaw could not have been more astonished if Walter had pointed a gun
+at him. The rest of the company simply stared in the most profound
+silence at Walter. Ten or fifteen seconds ticked away. Then Van Shaw,
+who had turned very red in the face, said, slowly: "I don't know as you
+have anything to say about this. I don't intend to let a good story go
+untold."
+
+"You don't tell it here in my room."
+
+"I don't? Who will prevent it?"
+
+"I will."
+
+Van Shaw turned a little toward Walter. Douglas was smaller, shorter,
+and of lighter build in every way than himself. But he was in the real
+point of vantage, in his own room. The other students did not seem
+disposed to take any sides in the matter. But one of them said: "Oh, cut
+it out, Van, if Douglas doesn't like it. A fellow has a right to say
+what he wants in his own room. It's only a matter of taste anyhow."
+
+Van Shaw looked at Walter savagely. Then he sauntered across the room.
+
+"Come out in the hall, fellows, and I'll finish there. This air is too
+pious for my health."
+
+Some of the boys laughed, and three or four fellows followed Van Shaw
+out. The rest stayed. When the door shut on Van Shaw, one of the older
+students, who had been silent throughout, walked up to Walter and shook
+hands with him. Then the rest of the group followed. Not a word was said
+by anyone. These youths, some of them already hardened by dissipation,
+had at least the native good sense not to mar the occasion by any silly
+attempt at words. They simply shook Walter's hand and went out. And when
+the last one was gone, Walter turned the key in his door and went into
+his bedroom adjoining, and flung himself down on the bed and cried.
+
+I don't know that he could have given any real reason for his emotion.
+But he was somewhat unstrung by the event. And a number of tumultuous
+feelings were stirring deeply in him. He turned hot and cold at the
+thought of his own possible cowardice. And then he felt a reaction of
+shame in the thought that after this, Van Shaw and all his set would cut
+him dead. He was ashamed to feel, even after all he had done, that he
+still shrank from the possibility of social scorn, even from a set of
+men who had no more moral standing than Van Shaw had.
+
+But, on the whole, having stood by his rights as he had, and having the
+pleasant consciousness of being true to his own principles, he was
+disposed to feel a glow of commendation, and later in the evening as
+Helen's splendid picture looked at him almost as if she was present,
+Walter said to himself: "I'm glad I spoke out. I'm glad."
+
+And then, because he had been brought up from a small boy to confide in
+his mother, he found great relief for his feelings that same night in
+writing to her. He mentioned no names, simply said that curiously soon
+after his mother had written as she did about guarding his own room from
+evil talk he had had an opportunity to do it. He did not dwell upon the
+matter at all, and did not take any special credit to himself for his
+action, but simply reminded his mother again of the difference in
+standards and conduct. He expressed gratitude that some of the fellows
+had at least silently stood by him. And he ended his letter by saying
+that he was almost on the edge of discovery of the arc light, although
+it still eluded him.
+
+For the next two weeks Walter was completely absorbed in his studies.
+Every spare hour he could get he pored and worked over his original
+problem. There were points about it which perplexed and exasperated him.
+Felix Bauer was as hard at work on the same problem as himself, and said
+one evening with a good-natured laugh that he believed he had mastered
+it. "All I lack is that one thing necessary what we call the
+'Beduerfniss' the '_einege gewolite_,'" said Bauer, as he took off his
+shop cap and thoughtfully ran a lead pencil back and forth through the
+short curly hair over his ear.
+
+"That's all I lack," said Walter. "If I could get your '_einege
+gewolite,_' I would have my answer."
+
+"Hope you will get it," said Bauer, pleasantly, as he closed up his
+locker and went out to meet another class period.
+
+After he had gone, Walter worked on until he was the only person left in
+the workroom. He had the entire afternoon and evening, as it happened,
+and was so absorbed in his experiments that he was hardly aware of his
+being alone until he looked up and saw that the big room was empty, and
+that it was dusk. Without any thought of supper he turned on the light
+over his table and made some mathematical calculations. Then he ran out
+of paper and looked about over the litter of stuff in front of him for
+another piece, but not finding any, glanced naturally over to Bauer's
+table, which was next his own.
+
+There was a folded bit of paper there, and Walter reached out for it,
+took it, and opened it up. It was covered on one side with some drawings
+and diagrams, and as Walter looked at them, not paying much attention at
+first, as he worked a high power formula over in his head, a little at a
+time it dawned on him as he continued to stare at Bauer's drawings, that
+without having realised it himself, perhaps, Bauer had actually
+suggested in his own drawing the key to the arc light Walter had been
+puzzling over for several months without success.
+
+"Yes! yes!" Walter was saying, excitedly, to himself. "I see it! I see
+it! What a dummy I was. The electrodes can be fitted with teeth at equal
+distances. Let the tooth rest on the porcelain plate. It will gradually
+soften and melt under the heat of the arc. Then--then. I see! I see--the
+electrode will, or it ought to, drop down of its own weight upon the
+next tooth. Then that will melt and the electrode will drop again. The
+two electrodes can be coupled together with a scissors coupling, so the
+teeth will have to be made in only one of them. I see the whole thing!
+Hurrah!" He said the last word out loud. The echo of it in the big,
+empty shop startled him. The glow of the discoverer, of the inventor,
+was on him and within him. Then he received a distinct reaction. That
+was Bauer's paper, not his! He had left it out of the locker when he
+went away! It was Bauer's discovery, not his, even if Bauer did not yet
+realise the real value and meaning of his diagram. He was on the road to
+the discovery.
+
+Walter stared at the paper again and wished he had never seen it. For he
+was face to face with a real temptation, one of the hardest and most
+alluring his young manhood had ever confronted, and he was afraid, as he
+continued to stare at the diagram made by Felix Bauer.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+IT was ten o'clock at night when Walter finally went out of the shop and
+up to his room. He did not turn on the light at once, but went over by
+his table and sat down.
+
+The temptation he still faced had assumed alluring shapes. In the first
+place, he was saying to himself, "Bauer's drawings differ only a trifle
+from my own and I had practically gone as far as he, only one or two
+points were suggested to me by his diagram of the electrodes resting at
+an angle on the porcelain plate. The cutting of the teeth in the soft
+metal was also suggested by him. But I had thought out other points that
+were essential."
+
+Then, again, Walter kept going over the great advantage it would be to
+him if this discovery were made by him first. He knew that the
+commercial value of any real improvement in city lighting was very
+large. There was money for him in this discovery. And Walter was growing
+more and more restless over his stewardship and the burdens it involved.
+He hated the drudgery and the time it took, and of late he began to feel
+quite certain that the same attitude displayed in other schools was
+creeping into Burrton, an attitude of contempt for the working student,
+nothing very pronounced, but enough to make him feel disagreeable and
+annoyed, for he was a finicky youth, sensitive to a great degree and
+with the taste of an aristocrat at heart.
+
+"I don't see that I do Bauer any harm if I go ahead and make a model.
+I'll do that anyhow," he said out loud at last, as he got up and turned
+on his light. And then he saw under the edge of his door a note which
+had been slipped in there.
+
+He went over, picked it up, opened it, and found it was a note from
+Bauer.
+
+"My Dear Douglas:--Within an hour after leaving the shop to-night I had
+a telegram calling me home. I do not know how soon I shall be able to
+return to Burrton, if at all. Will you kindly see if I left any of my
+apparatus or papers on my table and return them to my locker? I enclose
+the key with this note. Thank you.
+                                "FELIX BAUER."
+
+So Bauer was going to be away indefinitely. He might not come back at
+all. He had not given any reason for the call to come home, but Walter
+remembered one remark the German student had made one day which led him
+to believe that Bauer's home life was unhappy and the relations between
+his father and mother were unpleasant. Suppose he never came back.
+Suppose he never finished his investigation of the lamp? Suppose--there
+was a number of possibilities to suppose. Why, then the field would be
+open to him and he could go ahead with a clear conscience. But could he?
+In spite of all sophistry and special pleading with himself Walter knew
+he had caught the idea of the electrodes from Bauer's drawing, which
+suggested the secret. How did he know but that Bauer had discovered it
+as indicated in his own diagram and was making that preliminary to the
+finished lamp?
+
+There was one honest and plain way out for Walter. He could write to
+Bauer and frankly tell him that he had seen his drawings and had
+received from them a hint for the discovery and ask him if he were
+willing to share with him, Walter, in the result if the lamp proved
+worth while financially. But here was Walter's weak point. He was proud
+of his technical knowledge. Already it was conceded by all the students
+in the electrical engineering department that Douglas of Milton was the
+star. The instructors had given him special notice. He had already made
+one or two very valuable and original contributions to the problems that
+faced the shop every day. But nothing he had so far done would begin to
+compare with this new arc light. The thought of sharing his discovery
+with any one else touched his pride in its most sensitive and personal
+spot.
+
+He threshed it all over back and forth and when he finally went to bed
+he was still undecided as to his course. The fact is, he could not
+escape all the time the standard he had been trained in at home. If Paul
+and Esther had done nothing else for their children they had certainly
+done this; they had implanted in their minds a deep and strong feeling
+that one of the things to be most desired in life is honesty; clean,
+frank, wholesome honesty, free from cant and hypocrisy and double
+dealing. And Walter knew in his heart that what he was going to do was
+not honest to Bauer, even after he had juggled with his conscience and
+proved to himself that Bauer had no real rights in the matter. He knew
+perfectly well that the German student did have rights of prior
+discovery. No amount of argument or defense of his own discoveries could
+remove that fact.
+
+Nevertheless, next day in the shop after he had put Bauer's belongings,
+including the paper with the drawings, into Bauer's locker, Walter found
+himself working with nervous haste over his model. It went together with
+wonderful exactness and in spite of his feeling that he was acting the
+part of a miserable cheat, he was, at least, during a part of the time,
+in a glow of enthusiasm. For the most part he worked at night, when he
+was least liable to watching from the other fellows. There were several
+reasons why he could do this, among them an unusual interest in the
+school at that time in evening functions which drew most of the shop
+workers out.
+
+Walter took parts of his model up to his room each night and studied
+them. At the end of two weeks he had completed the lamp and it remained
+only to give it an actual test. No word had been received from Bauer,
+and inquiry from different professors had failed to discover any news
+from him. It seemed to Walter almost certain that Bauer would not
+return, and each day of his absence gave Walter less uneasiness, if not
+an actual dulling of the keen edge of his conscience.
+
+The day before he planned to test his lamp at the shop, Walter received
+another letter from his mother, one part of which annoyed him greatly.
+His mother wrote chiding him good-naturedly for not sending his usual
+weekly letter. In fact, since his discovery of Bauer's plan, Walter had
+failed to write home, for the first time since coming to Burrton. He
+could not account for this failure except on the ground that he was too
+busy.
+
+But his mother wrote without any knowledge of all this, telling him bits
+of news that she thought he would most want to know.
+
+"Your father has been asked by the Citizens' Committee, to let his name
+go on the primaries for senator from the Fifth district. I have my
+doubts about the wisdom of a newspaper editor going into politics, but
+your father, while he had some hesitation, has finally agreed to let his
+name go down. So now we can expect lively times in the Douglas family
+until after election next fall.
+
+"Helen has two more beaus, one of them ten years older than herself. I
+am not making fun of this, as you know, for I have tried to teach you
+all that the love part of life is in some ways the most serious as well
+as the most happy of all your experiences. Helen has good sense when it
+comes to a final decision on anything. I am not afraid for her.
+
+"Louis is better than he has been for a long time. His eyes are stronger
+and his headaches have almost ceased. He seems to enjoy his studies this
+term and is making progress. We all feel pleased of course. Louis has
+had an offer from his uncle to go into the store, but your father and I
+would much prefer to keep him in school if his health will allow. We are
+ambitious for all of you and want you to have an education and do in the
+world what you are best fitted to do.
+
+"We want you to come home for Christmas. And from the different bits you
+have written about your German friend Bauer we have been wondering if he
+could not come with you. I understand from one of your letters that he
+is rather a lonesome fellow, without many friends. If he is not going to
+his own home at Christmas time, give him a good, strong invitation from
+father and me to come with you. You know we have never been separated at
+the holiday season, and it will be my treat to pay your expenses home
+this time unless you make a new arc light and get it patented and make a
+lot of money out of it. We are all interested in the light and speak of
+it almost every day. Your father was saying this morning that our street
+lights are a disgrace to Milton. There is a citizens' war going on at
+present over the situation and every number of the _News_ contains
+letters from angry taxpayers calling the city government to account for
+the wretched nature of the street lighting. If you should happen to
+discover an economical and satisfactory city lamp, the people of Milton
+would be ready now to compel the council to purchase and install it. Of
+course this all sounds rather like a story, but stranger things have
+happened in the history of inventions. And if you should happen to be
+the fortunate discoverer, we would be very proud and happy.
+
+"Don't forget to make the invitation to Mr. Bauer as hearty as you can.
+I am anxious to see you, as all of us are.
+                                "YOUR LOVING MOTHER."
+
+The things which annoyed Walter in this letter were, first of all, his
+mother's invitation to Bauer. Of course if he did not return to school,
+that would be the end of it. But if he should return, why, then, under
+the peculiar conditions that existed it would be more than embarrassing
+for Walter to bring Bauer home with him. And to add to his annoyance
+Walter began to feel hard toward the German student, as if Bauer had
+done him a wrong. It is, of course, true that one of the surest ways to
+acquire a hatred of anyone is first of all to do him an injustice.
+Having already wronged Bauer in stealing his ideas, Walter was fast
+entering on the second stage of his relations to him and beginning to
+feel hateful toward him.
+
+The other annoyance caused by his mother's letter was due to the fact
+that in her ignorance of the situation she was all unconsciously
+strengthening his temptation to complete the light and get it before the
+public as his own as soon as possible. The street-lighting conditions in
+Milton were duplicated in hundreds of municipalities all over the
+country. There was no doubt in Walter's mind that the first really
+successful economical lamp offered the public would find a quick and
+remunerative sale. With a growing excitement he began to see the great
+probabilities before his invention. And all that his mother had written
+simply tended to push him on to complete his work before Bauer could
+return and make the necessary discovery for himself.
+
+He was vexed and annoyed to a degree he had never before experienced.
+And he knew deep down in his heart that it was because he was acting a
+dishonourable part toward the absent classmate. He began to lose sleep
+over it, and grew nervous and exceedingly unhappy. On the one hand, his
+home training had made him sensitive to moral standards. He would not
+have dared to write to his mother about the affair to ask her advice as
+to what he ought to do, because he knew without writing what she would
+say. On the other hand, his ambition goaded him to ignore what it called
+a technicality, tried to befog the issue by whispering that Bauer could
+not succeed without putting into the lamp the things which Walter had
+discovered already himself, and constantly insinuated that even if he
+had not happened to see Bauer's diagram, Walter would probably have
+worked it out in a day or two anyhow.
+
+He replied to his mother's letter briefly, saying he was unusually busy
+and adding that he did not think Bauer could come with him because he
+had been called home and would not in all likelihood return to Burrton.
+He said nothing in this letter about the lamp; he could not bring
+himself to mention it. And he knew when he posted the letter that the
+tone of it would make his mother ask questions because it was so
+different from the enthusiastic, jolly letters he had written before.
+
+It was during this week that he fixed on a certain evening to make a
+practical test of his lamp. He had guarded his secret successfully. Not
+a soul, including both instructors and students, knew the special work
+he had been doing. Among the great number of special and changing
+experiments going on in the shop it had not been difficult to keep his
+discovery to himself.
+
+He chose a night when a great social event was occurring in hopes that
+he might have the shop to himself. There were a few enthusiastic
+specialists who did considerable night work, but on this particular
+evening they went out early and by nine o'clock he found himself alone.
+The power which lighted the town of Burrton was the same as that in use
+at the school and was in operation day and night. The conditions seemed
+absolutely favorable to a test of his invention, and by ten o'clock
+Walter had made all connections and brought his electrodes into
+position.
+
+The only question with him was whether the heat of the arc would melt
+the soft metal teeth at the right time and with even regularity. He was
+pale and nervous with the tension of the work, his loss of sleep and his
+goading of conscience, and when the carbons started to glow with the
+familiar hiss, he started back as if someone had come in, and looked
+around the shop fearfully.
+
+Then he laughed hysterically and turned again to his machine. His whole
+attention was now fastened upon it, and with the true inventor's ecstasy
+he forgot Bauer, forgot his mother, forgot that he was at the center of
+a great moral tragedy for his own soul, forgot there was a God, and a
+judgment day and any such things as conscience or remorse, or injustice.
+
+His whole soul flung itself on that point of dazzling light and the soft
+metal teeth which he had coupled in a strip to the electrodes. He
+watched it, fascinated and fearful. He saw the tooth begin to glow to a
+red, then to a white, heat and then it melted softly away, letting the
+electrodes fall gently, keeping the points of their position in perfect
+place while the second tooth slipped down in turn to be transformed into
+a soft and yielding point.
+
+The lamp worked! It was a practical success! It had stood the test! He
+did not know how long he had been in the shop or how long he had been
+watching the mechanism. He switched off the power, and adjusted a part
+of the scissors-coupling. Then he turned on the current again and with
+the same feeling of fascination watched the softening and dissolving of
+the metal tooth.
+
+A noise of a door opening aroused him and he looked up. Someone had come
+in, and was walking directly toward his bench.
+
+The glare of the lamp blinded him, and his eyes had to become adjusted
+to the dimness as he turned his back on the lamp. But when the person
+was ten feet away he recognised in a moment the face of Bauer, as he
+came walking slowly toward him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WALTER'S mind worked with what he afterward described to himself as an
+unquestioning obedience to a first impulse, at the centre of which was
+an instantaneous fear of discovery. Before Bauer had taken another step
+nearer him he had turned, switched off the power from the lamp, and
+snatched up a hammer from his bench.
+
+With one blow he smashed the electrodes and then, as if made frantic
+over the act, he struck at the mechanism until it was a heap of bent and
+twisted wires and metal. It lay on his bench in a tangled mass and he
+stooped over it and began to sweep it off into the refuse box. Bauer had
+not yet said a word. Only with the first blow of the hammer he had
+ejaculated "Ach!" As Walter was flinging bits of the lamp into the box
+the German student came up and stood near, looking at Walter in
+astonishment.
+
+"What is the matter?"
+
+Walter simply muttered some unintelligible thing. He was, to tell the
+truth, tremendously excited, disturbed, overwhelmed by Bauer's return at
+this particular time.
+
+"I've--I've been experimenting and have failed," he finally managed to
+say, stammering out the words with great difficulty. He was terrified to
+think Bauer might read in his face the whole story.
+
+But Felix Bauer was one of the most simple-hearted and unsuspicious
+souls that ever lived. If he had not been, some of the things that are
+going to be true of this story could never have happened. He looked at
+Walter and then at the broken mechanism and simply said: "I am sorry you
+have failed. But it is nothing by the side of dishonor."
+
+And then for the first time Walter looked openly and squarely into
+Bauer's face and saw tragedy there. The incandescent light over the
+bench was not a strong one. But Bauer was close to him and Walter
+quickly saw that he was not thinking of what Walter had done, was not
+going to ask him any questions about it, because some other thing was
+gripping him, some other thing so strong and insistent and sorrowful
+that it took possession of him and dominated him. Walter's action had
+already passed out of his mind as simply an incident connected with some
+disappointing experiment, and he was looking at Walter with an appeal in
+his great, sad eyes which smote Walter like a blow in the dark.
+
+He felt almost faint and instinctively he sat down. Bauer had gone over
+to his own desk and stood leaning against it.
+
+"I ought not to come in here and annoy you at this time," he said in his
+slow, almost stammering manner, "but I--you see, somehow I felt so
+lonely, so afraid, when I got off the train to-night, that I could not
+help the desire to see you, and they told me you must be in the shop.
+Heine says in the Lorelei, you know, 'Ich weiss nicht was soll es
+bedeuten, das Ich so traurig bin?' But I do know why I am so sad. It is
+disgrace which has befallen me, such deep disgrace to my home, my
+father------"
+
+He stopped and looked at Walter timidly as if not quite sure how his
+confidence might be received. Walter sat with his head bowed, and
+smitten into silence. He did not know what to say, but Bauer probably
+took his silence for quiet sympathy, being of that nature himself and
+mistaking Walter's attitude for earnest attention.
+
+"My father--you will understand what it means--has deserted my mother,
+and she has run away, the home destroyed is to be, and the disgrace--Oh,
+it is greater, more than I can endure, I said as I was obliged to come
+back for my things. It is more than I can bear alone, and you are so
+strong, so principled."
+
+Walter cowered in his chair, appalled at the thing that was happening to
+him. Here was a soul in desperate need who had come to fling itself on
+him for companionship and courage, and he with his own soul stained with
+deception for the love of fame and money! He would have cried out; he
+wanted to, but Bauer went on, now he had broken over his natural
+reserve. He eagerly awaited Walter's sympathy, and his spirit hungered
+for light in his darkness.
+
+"Yes, you see, I don't know anyone here, and your action about the story
+telling in your room--I heard of that--I counted it a brave thing to do.
+And, oh, I am so hungry for a friend! I need one; do you think you could
+be friend to me, do you, Douglas? Friend to a disgraced family? It is
+asking a great deal, but I feel the dark, the dark--it is so heavy for
+me------"
+
+Bauer, looking at Walter in his almost animal-like appeal, saw at last
+that there was something he did not understand in Walter's attitude.
+Walter's mind was not confused by the strange situation, it was clear
+and vibrating with feeling. But it was a long time before he could
+speak. How could he tell Bauer the truth now? Why not let him remain in
+ignorance of the purpose to steal his ideas? Nothing had been done so
+far to really wrong him. The lamp was destroyed. Walter would not make
+another, and the basis of a possible friendship, such as Bauer needed,
+could be established without any explanation or foolish confession.
+
+But somehow Walter could not rest with that suggestion. He felt that if
+Bauer had his friendship it must rest on truth and a frank outspoken
+revelation of the character of the soul he was appealing to for help.
+
+It was very still in the big shop when Walter finally looked up and said
+to Bauer:
+
+"I am not worthy of your friendship. I am not what you think I am."
+
+"Not worthy? Not------" Bauer looked at him in amazement.
+
+"No, not worthy. Look!" Walter spoke fast now as if afraid he might fail
+in courage. "Open your locker! Here! here is the key! You left it with
+me."
+
+He thrust the key at Bauer, and Bauer turned around, and under the
+pressure of Walter's look and voice opened his locker and stood in front
+of it holding on to the door.
+
+"There! That paper! Your plan, your drawing of the lamp! Open it. Let me
+show------"
+
+Bauer obeyed mechanically. Walter got up and stood by Bauer's table.
+Bauer slowly unfolded the paper. His look showed he had almost forgotten
+it.
+
+"There! See! You were on the right track! The soft metal teeth coupled
+to the electrode! Don't you see?" Bauer's face began to glow for the
+first time that evening, for he, too, like Walter, had the inventor's
+sensitive hunger. "You left the paper here the night you were called
+home. I saw it and copied it before I put it back. I made the model and
+it works. That is it there," and Walter pointed to the stuff on the
+table and in the refuse box. "Do you understand? I stole your plans. I
+was going to get out the lamp without telling you if you had not come
+back. And I am the person you want for a friend. Am I worthy? Do you
+understand now?"
+
+A dull red spot began to creep up into the German student's face. He was
+still holding the locker door with one hand. His eye travelled from the
+diagram to Walter and then back again. Walter stood very erect, his head
+thrown back almost defiantly now that he had made his confession, and he
+was absolutely in the dark as to the effect of it on Bauer. He would and
+could not blame him for being angry. And he was angry for a moment. But
+only a moment. Then his great brown eyes softened and he said in a
+quiet, gentle way that moved Walter more than any burst of passion could
+have done:
+
+"I am not a judge for you. While on the way home I suddenly thought out
+the secret of the metal teeth. See! I have it here." He took out of his
+pocket a paper and opening it spread it out on Walter's desk. Walter saw
+in a second's glance that Bauer had discovered the working basis for the
+successful light. "And I was going to work on the plan when I came back.
+But all my trouble drove it away. I lost my ambition. And I understand
+what you did. I might have done the same. But still, Douglas, do you
+know, I don't care. I--I am hungry for a friend just like you. What you
+have said does not change anything. What difference does that make? That
+is not trouble, not for me."
+
+Walter looked at him a moment and then in the reaction which was really
+the taking off of the strain of weeks, he put his head between his hands
+and sobbed. Bauer did not venture to say anything. When Walter could
+control himself he reached out his hand. Bauer took it, and in that
+grasp the two young men understood each other for life. I think each
+gave as much as he took. The sacred compact they sealed in the big empty
+shop that night was made with few words, but it was never disturbed nor
+broken in after years. And each one of them realised something of the
+depth and joy of real friendship. Do you? Does anybody? Our human
+friendships, when they are real and permanent, are the finest and
+richest possessions of our lives. Pity we treat them so lightly and
+measure them so tamely.
+
+That same night Bauer in his simple manner told Walter something more of
+his home troubles, enough to give Walter a glimpse into the real sorrow
+of his heart. Walter in his turn told in part the story of his
+temptation and of his struggles and tortures to escape. To this Bauer
+listened with a faint smile and with perfect understanding.
+
+In the days that followed, they agreed to construct the lamp between
+them and share in the profits from it. And when they began work on the
+mechanism each found that the other had discovered little improvements
+which were necessary to the best construction, finally producing a lamp
+far more perfect and practical than Walter's first attempt.
+
+The day after that memorable scene with Bauer in the shop Walter wrote
+home a long and exuberant letter, a part of which we may read.
+
+"Mother, I can't begin to tell you what a relief I have experienced
+since I told Bauer all about it. I believe I had a little taste of hell
+for a while and I don't want to go through it again. Bauer and I are the
+best friends you ever saw. He is just the opposite of me. I'm impulsive
+and quick and get mad quick and all that. You know all about it, but he
+is slow and calm and talks only a little at a time. He is not what you
+would call handsome, but he has the most beautiful brown eyes I ever
+saw. If I was a girl I would think he was handsome because his eyes are.
+He has told me a good deal about his home life and I have told him
+something about ours, and he has asked some questions. And, oh yes, he
+is coming home with me for the holidays. At first he refused, but when I
+told him how much you wanted him to come and how lonesome it would be
+for him here he consented to come. I hope you will all like him. Helen
+will probably think he is odd and solemn, but I hope she will be kind
+and all of us can make him feel at home.
+
+"We are working on the lamp together and it is almost finished. We are
+keeping the construction of it a secret because we want to spring it on
+Anderson, the foreman. I haven't told you about him. He is all up on
+electricity, knows as much about it as Edison, at least he almost says
+so at times, and he really does know a lot, but he is the one teacher in
+the whole bunch I don't like. There is a manner about him that makes you
+feel he has on a dress suit and a stovepipe hat all the time. I heard
+the other day he is related to the Van Shaws, a cousin or something of
+the steel magnate at Pittsburgh. I have never had any trouble with
+Anderson, but I felt relieved the other day to hear that I was not the
+only fellow in the school that he ruffled. He is mighty unpopular. Bauer
+and I are going to make sure of our lamp first and then give Anderson a
+look at it. If the thing goes as well as we expect I don't know how much
+there will be in it for us. But if it is anything like what I expect, no
+more stewardship for me. I'm tired of waiting on the swells, and since
+the Van Shaw episode I've not had a very pleasant time with some of
+them. You see, mother, there is a crowd here that seems to think it is
+necessary to be coarse and fast in order to be men. The more money they
+can spend, the more beer they can drink, the more chorus girls'
+photographs they can get to paste up in their rooms, the more tobacco
+pipes they can display over and under their mantels, the more slang and
+indecency they can learn, the more college atmosphere they think they
+are creating. I wonder sometimes why the professors don't seem to care
+about the morals of us students. We never hear anything in the class
+room or the shop except the technical parts of our studies. I haven't a
+single teacher at Burrton that I would go to if I were in real trouble
+and I never would think of going to President Davis about anything. He
+is a great scholar and hustler for money, but I should hate to have to
+go to him for advice or sympathy.
+
+"Well, I have made the letter long enough. I'm getting a little homesick
+to see you all, and looking forward to the holidays. Expect me home with
+a trunk full of money from the sale of the lamp. If we get it patented
+we may either sell the thing outright, or Bauer thinks we can better
+make profitable terms with some good electrical manufacturing firm like
+Madison Brooks & Co., New York. Love to all.
+                                "Walter."
+
+Mrs. Douglas answered him at once and in the course of her letter
+expressed her delight at the happy outcome of Walter's experience with
+the lamp and with Bauer's friendship.
+
+"I don't know when you have given your mother more happiness, boy. I was
+so happy I cried all the forenoon while your father and Helen and Louis
+were out of the house. I am delighted that you have made a friend. Do
+you know what that means? If Bauer is what you think he is, you and he
+have something more than a trunkful of money. A man or a woman can live
+to be fifty years old without gaining more than two or three such
+friends as Bauer. So what has really happened to you is a splendid
+thing. And I hope you will feel very rich indeed. Of course we would all
+be pleased if the lamp turns out to be a success. But I suppose you will
+make up your mind to be ready for anything. There are many slips between
+models and patents, and it will be well for both of you not to buy
+expensive trips around the world on the strength of your discovery until
+the money is really in hand.
+
+"Louis is giving us some trouble lately. He is very slow in his studies,
+especially his English, Your father, I think, feels annoyed by it,
+because he wants Louis to be literary. But Louis's English teacher
+brought to your father the other day a composition Louis had written on
+the Tuberculosis Outdoor Hospital recently established at the Mansfield
+farm by the State Board of Health. Miss Barrows, the teacher, is a very
+practical person and she went out to this tuberculosis station with a
+section of her class in English, and told the members to keep their eyes
+open and on their return to the school to write one hundred words about
+what they had seen. And this is Louis's contribution to the symposium:
+
+"'Tuberculosis was started in 1884, by Dr. Trudeau, who had it in the
+Adirondacks. Although consumption is not inherited and does not belong
+in the climate it is getting very popular. The sleeping bags are very
+useful to the consumptive people because they can keep their heads out
+and put the rest of their bodies into them. I saw the germs. It is a big
+white ball with blue spots on it. I think it would be fine to sleep in
+one of those beds with the head inside and the lungs outside.'
+
+"Well, when your father read this, he simply choked. In fact we all
+choked, and Helen who happened to get hold of it somehow, just screamed.
+Poor Louis was mad at every one of us and especially at Miss Barrows
+when he heard she had taken his account to his father. At first your
+father thought Louis was trying to be funny at the expense of the
+English department in the high school. But he wasn't. He was in dead
+earnest, and doing his best. I tell your father that it isn't fair to
+ridicule Louis. Ridicule is a dangerous form of criticism and Louis is
+very sensitive. I don't blame him for saying that the teacher ought not
+to make fun of him when he is trying to get his lessons. He fairly hates
+some of his teachers because they use sarcastic or ironical remarks
+about him in the presence of the whole school. It seems strange to me
+that any teacher will do that, especially in the case of a boy like
+Louis. They defend themselves by saying it is the only way to wake up
+the students or shame them into doing good work. But I believe they are
+wrong in their methods with boys like Louis and I am going to talk with
+them about it for his sake.
+
+"We will welcome Bauer with you at the holidays. He will feel at home
+with us if your mother has anything to do about it. We all anticipate
+his coming. If you are a little homesick to see us we are all more than
+a little eager to see you. I pray the good God to keep you pure and
+true. Lovingly,
+                                "MOTHER."
+
+Two weeks after this and two weeks before the Christmas holidays, Walter
+and Bauer had completed their lamp and given it a test. It was more
+perfect by far than Walter's model. It worked with a practical certainty
+that left no doubt in their minds that unless some unforeseen factor
+came in to change conditions they had a workable, economic mechanism
+which was automatic and durable.
+
+Within a day or two they decided to let Anderson into the secret and
+Walter asked him to come into the shop at night to see the result of
+some special original work. This was a common request and the foreman
+simply made his engagement at the hour assigned, and when the hour came
+he went in and Watched Walter and Bauer bring out the lamp and make the
+necessary connections. Anderson had respect for Walter's ability,
+recognising in him the brightest mind for electricity that Burrton had
+ever seen in a student. He stood by silently at first while Walter in
+considerable excitement and some evident pride did the explaining. But
+when the light started in the arc and the brilliant glow of it began to
+fling out its dazzling shafts through the shop the professor started
+forward, a look of astonishment came over his face and he asked Walter a
+question, so unexpected, that Walter turned pale and looked first at
+Anderson and then at Bauer in blind wonder and a great sinking of heart.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+"DIDN'T you know that this lamp has already been made and patent applied
+for by Gambrich of New York?"
+
+"No! When?"
+
+"Within the last week. Wait. I'll show you."
+
+Anderson went over to his own desk at the end of the shop. In the few
+minutes he was gone, Walter and Bauer exchanged questions.
+
+"Do you suppose that's true?"
+
+"Doesn't seem possible, does it? If it is, our cake is dough."
+
+"Anderson seemed pleased when he announced the fact, if it is one," said
+Walter bitterly.
+
+"It may not be true, you know," said Bauer hopefully.
+
+Anderson had come back in time to hear the last sentence.
+
+"It is true, though, young man. See."
+
+He had the last copy of the _Electrical News_, and it was open at an
+illustrated page.
+
+He laid it down on Walter's bench and he and Bauer eagerly bent over it.
+
+Almost the first glance revealed the fact that the lamp described in the
+paper was identical with their own and application for a patent had been
+made within ten days. The account of the discovery, moreover, made the
+date earlier than the discovery made by Walter.
+
+"You see, don't you," said Anderson. "Gambrich has exactly the same
+device of metal teeth coupled to one electrode. It's an ingenious device
+and you fellows have certainly great credit for thinking it out almost
+simultaneously with Gambrich."
+
+"According to this account, our lamp was made before Gambrich's. Does
+that give him priority of invention?" asked Walter eagerly.
+
+Anderson shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Priority of manufacture does not legally cut any figure by the side of
+priority of invention. You might be able to prove that you had made the
+lamp before Gambrich made his, but that would not help you any if he
+invented his arrangement first, long before you made your lamp."
+
+"Is that really strict justice?" said Bauer slowly.
+
+"It is law," said Anderson grimly, "and you must remember that law and
+justice are not in every case synonymous. I'm sorry for you fellows.
+There's a lot of money in that invention for the manufacturers of the
+lamp, and considerable for the inventor if he knows how to make terms."
+
+"Do you mean," asked Walter gloomily, "that really we have no right at
+all with what we have made?"
+
+"Don't you see you haven't? What can you do? Ask any lawyer, if you
+don't believe me."
+
+Anderson spoke somewhat testily as he started to go away.
+
+"I believe you're glad we missed this opportunity," said Walter angrily.
+He was tremendously discouraged over the event and could not control his
+feelings.
+
+Anderson grew very red and turned on Walter in a rage.
+
+"I don't mind saying I am glad your pride has had a tumble. You have
+been unbearable for some time. Maybe this will teach you a lesson. There
+are people in the world who know a little about electricity as well as
+yourself."
+
+All of which was not calculated to sweeten Walter's sense of defeat or
+make him more friendly to Anderson, who, after glaring at Bauer, who had
+not said a word, abruptly went out of the shop.
+
+The lamp was working all this time, with an exasperating smoothness and
+precision that spoke eloquently of its financial possibilities. There
+were a few workers in the other parts of the shop who, realising that
+some unusual event was on, began to gather around Walter and Bauer and
+ask questions. Among the group was Van Shaw.
+
+In a few moments everyone knew the story of the lamp, and Walter and
+Bauer came in for congratulations over the invention and sympathy for
+its uselessness to them.
+
+"I could have told everybody about that lamp two months ago," said Van
+Shaw, speaking with an indirect manner peculiarly offensive to Walter.
+"I have had advices from a near friend in New York that Gambrich was at
+work on this device. It's a pity some Burrton man can't have the credit
+and the cash that are going to Gambrich."
+
+Walter's fingers closed around one of the tools on his bench and he felt
+mad enough at that moment to throw it either at Van Shaw or the lamp. He
+did not do either, but when the crowd had finally gone away, he sat down
+at his bench and said to Bauer: "What chumps we were not to apply for a
+patent weeks ago. We might have contested it. We have let a fortune slip
+out of our hands through our stupidity."
+
+"It's because we did not take anyone into confidence. I never thought of
+a patent. I was too much absorbed in the lamp itself to think anything
+about anything else."
+
+"Whom could we have taken into confidence? Van Shaw or Anderson? But I
+don't feel like giving up. Why can't we contest our rights? There are
+cases in the courts every day over patents and inventions."
+
+"But it takes a lot of money to hire a lawyer and go to law," said Bauer
+with real Teutonic caution. "And I haven't a dollar to spare. According
+to Anderson, it's as good as settled that Gambrich has the legal right
+to the lamps."
+
+Walter stared at the arc gloomily. He felt the disappointment with deep
+bitterness. Not only was his pride smitten at the thought of others who
+were working out his ideas, but the thought of the money he might have
+made, and the relief that money might have brought him, rankled deepest
+in his mind.
+
+Bauer took the affair more philosophically. He went over to Walter and
+put a hand on his shoulder.
+
+"When we are beaten we might as well accept it and make something else.
+I don't like to see you take the thing so hard."
+
+"What else can we make?" Walter said after a moment. "I've lost my
+ambition."
+
+"Oh, no you haven't; not for good and all. Why, we might invent a
+typewriter telegraph."
+
+"It's too late, that's already been done."
+
+"I'll tell you what would bring us fame and money," said Bauer with his
+usual slow manner and his friendly smile. "What the world needs is a
+letter writer that will take letters at dictation, first hand."
+
+Walter stared at Bauer gloomily. "What's that?"
+
+"A direct letter writer," said Bauer. "A machine that the business man
+and the minister and the college professor and the politician and the
+railroad man and the lover could talk into. As fast as he talked, it
+would make a visible mark on the paper and when the person was through
+dictating his letter he could pull it out all typewritten ready to send.
+Just think what a blessing this would be to the busy letter writer."
+
+Walter stared at Bauer as if his friend was crazy. Then, after a moment
+of doubt, he burst into a great laugh.
+
+"Well, of all the--It's the first time I ever knew a German could be
+out and out funny. Do you know what your letter writing machine would
+have to do? It would have to know how to spell right."
+
+"No, it wouldn't. All it would have to do would be to spell
+phonetically. Every machine would spell and print just as the person
+talked."
+
+"Yes, and what will become of the great army of stenographers and
+typewriter girls who make their living now at taking dictation? I don't
+want to invent something that is going to deprive thousands of people of
+a living."
+
+"You could marry one of them and I would marry another. That would take
+care of two of 'em," said Bauer solemnly.
+
+Walter looked up at him a moment, and then he roared. It was what Bauer
+wanted him to do. And when they finally went to their rooms Walter was
+feeling somewhat better, although he did not get a good night's sleep.
+His dreams had in them fitful glimpses of Van Shaw and Anderson and a
+red hot arc lamp that glared and flamed at him with a diabolical grin
+that rejoiced in his defeat.
+
+It was two days before he could bring himself to write home a full
+account of the matter. Both his father and his mother replied to this
+and each wrote in full sympathy with him and a knowledge of what his
+disappointment would be to him.
+
+"Of course," Paul said, at the close of his letter, "if it is true that
+the New York man really invented the idea of the lamp before you did and
+then patented it before you did, that settles it, even if you were first
+to make an actual model. The patent laws recognise priority of invention
+where no unreasonable delay has followed the invention and the
+application for patent. Looking up the subject in the _Electrical News_
+and consulting with Alvord, our best patent lawyer here in Milton, I am
+afraid you are too late to do anything, and a contest, Alvord thinks,
+would result in nothing but expense for you and your friend. If I
+thought there was any legal right you possessed and ought to have I
+would be willing to help you contest for it. But that seems to be out of
+the question.
+
+"Don't let this defeat mean too much to you. It is not a defeat. You did
+your best and actually made a very important discovery, you and Bauer.
+If you can do that, you can do other things as well. The unknown,
+undiscovered world of electricity is boundless. You have as much right
+to enter in as anybody, and far more probabilities than most persons
+that you will find something worth while. We are all anticipating your
+home coming for holidays and expect Bauer to come with you.
+Affectionately your father.
+
+                                "PAUL DOUGLAS."
+
+
+Walter's mother wrote in much the same way and cheerfully urged him to
+take all the disappointing things with hopeful equanimity.
+
+"The longer I live, the more I find the real joy of life consists in
+doing our best with God's help and leaving the results with Him. Of
+course we all like to get results out of our efforts. But we forget that
+results always do follow honest effort, only they are not always the
+results we expected and wanted. No doubt, boy, you feel like saying to
+us at home, 'Yes, it's easy for you to sit there at your ease and deal
+out calm chunks of sympathy to me and tell me not to worry or feel bad,
+but if you had worked as hard as I did you wouldn't find it quite as
+easy to be happy over this disappointment.'
+
+"Well, we confess all that, but your mother doesn't want to see her son
+give up and go down to defeat from one or two or a dozen or even a
+hundred blows. You have had the joy of making the lamp (after you
+cleared your soul by confession to Bauer), and you know that your brain
+works at its best along inventive lines and you know the field of
+invention, especially in electricity, is limitless. Your mother says to
+you, we feel proud of you and we will feel doubly proud if you will
+learn to take this disappointment cheerfully. Don't be a baby over it.
+Be a man. The tests of manhood are not found in the easy, but in the
+difficult things of life.
+
+"The great thing after all, is to live up to the high calling. I don't
+care much, Walter, whether you ever invent anything or not, although I
+wish you could find out how to make a machine that will take off a
+woman's hat and hold it in church so that she can take care of her hymn
+book, her Bible, her gloves, her pocket book, her fan, her umbrella and
+her handkerchief, but if you never discovered a single secret of nature
+and discover the secret of a useful life, I would be and shall be the
+happiest of all women, for that is my ambition for you and always will
+be.
+
+"Be sure and bring Bauer home with you. We are all interested to see
+him.
+
+                                "Lovingly,
+                                "MOTHER."
+
+Helen also wrote to Walter at this time. She was not much of a letter
+writer but she wanted to add her word of sympathy with the rest and
+Walter felt especially pleased that she exerted herself on this
+occasion.
+
+"Dear Bub," Helen wrote, using the name she had always given him in her
+childhood. "We all feel awfully sorry about the way the lamp came out.
+It didn't seem fair to you and I hope you will invent something better
+that will throw that lamp in the shade, so to speak. We all believe in
+you and I have never for a moment doubted that in time you would be
+another Edison. I'm enjoying my school this year more than ever. Since
+our new gymnasium director was appointed I have found favor in her eyes
+and she has turned over one of the academy classes to me by consent of
+President Bruce. I did plan to study for a position as professor of
+domestic science, but since this appointment work opened up I feel as if
+I could like to be a physical director in a college or a Y. W. C. A. I
+love the gymnasium work immensely and Miss Rhodes says I am her best
+pupil.
+
+"We are all wondering what sort of an individual your Felix Bauer is.
+Does he speak broken English very badly? Will it be difficult to talk to
+him without a German grammar? I have an idea I shall not like him very
+well, from what you have written about him. But I don't suppose that
+will make any difference to him.
+
+"Father has got into politics all right and as he and mother have
+written you, he has been elected senator and will begin his term in
+January when the legislature meets. Father is very hopeful about doing
+things. Mother says he will have lots of opposition from the machine. I
+don't understand all this political discussion, but you know father. He
+is dead in earnest as you know and now that he is elected he is going to
+make the machine, whatever that is, 'sit up and take notice.' This is
+what my teacher in English would call a disjointed metaphor.
+
+"Father is working over a dozen bills calculated to reform the state.
+The word 'reform' is a household word in the Douglas family. But you
+know father. Isn't he the dearest man that ever lived? It makes me mad
+to read what the papers have been saying about him ever since he was
+nominated. Anyone who didn't know father would think from reading these
+papers that he was an out and out villain. And we all know, and Milton
+people know, that if ever a man lived who had a pure and earnest desire
+to help make a better world, father is that man. I hate politics. It
+seems to me it is the meanest thing there is. I don't know anything else
+so mean as to take a man like father and question his motives and call
+him all sorts of names and try to blacken his character. Mother says she
+doesn't mind, but I believe she can't help feeling it some. It just
+makes me mad.
+
+"Well, bub, don't be discouraged. We believe in you just as much as
+ever. We are looking for you home next week.
+
+"Oh, by the way, does your friend Bauer have to have his beer regularly?
+And must we lay in an extra supply of sauer kraut and pretzels? I am
+sitting up nights studying my German exercises so I can say 'Eine
+Schwalbe macht noch Keinen Sommer' and other interesting topics of
+conversation. Lovingly your sister.
+
+                                "HELEN DILLINGHAM DOUGLAS."
+
+Walter laughed over this letter, but rather resented the tone Helen
+displayed about Bauer. "I hope Bauer won't make any bad breaks and I
+don't believe he will." But Walter had a little talk with Bauer that
+same evening in which Bauer expressed a little nervousness about his
+approaching visit at Walter's home.
+
+"I haven't ever been anywhere to speak of, you know," he said a little
+doubtfully. "And I begin to feel a little afraid of meeting your folks."
+
+"Afraid? Why, you can't even look at mother without falling in love with
+her. And as for father he will take to you right off. I know he will,
+for several reasons."
+
+"But your sister?" Bauer looked up at the photograph of Helen on
+Walter's dresser. "Somehow I feel a little afraid of her. I don't
+believe I'll get along very well. Does she talk German? I feel a little
+more at my ease if I can talk what you call small talk in my own
+language."
+
+"No, I don't believe Helen knows enough German to talk it intelligently.
+But you needn't be afraid of her. She is interested in your coming as
+all the family are and she has asked me several questions about you,"
+said Walter, not venturing to tell Bauer what the questions were.
+
+"Is that so?" said Bauer, looking pleased. Then after a moment he added,
+"It's awfully good of you to ask me to your home. I won't forget it."
+
+And indeed, Felix Bauer, you never will.
+
+The two friends reached Milton three days before Christmas and were met
+at the station by Paul and Louis. Paul took to Bauer from the moment he
+first saw him. You know how that is, that indescribable attraction you
+feel towards certain people even without an introduction, and Bauer had
+the same feeling for Walter's father. At the dinner table that night
+Bauer soon forgot his timidity because everyone was so kind. There was
+any number of questions to ask. Walter did a large share of the talking.
+Mrs. Douglas looked proud and Helen was on her best behavior and in less
+than ten minutes Bauer had lost his fear of her and was in danger of
+entertaining the opposite feeling. Walter Darcy and Louis Darcy,
+Esther's brothers, were present, and helped to make the meal a lively
+and entertaining occasion. And Felix Bauer said to himself when the
+evening was over that it was the pleasantest evening of his life.
+
+The next morning Paul asked Bauer to go down to the office with him, The
+_News_ was installing a recently invented linotype and Paul wanted Bauer
+to see it.
+
+They looked over the mechanism and then came back to Paul's office room.
+Bauer was looking over some specimen type Paul had on his table when
+three men came in.
+
+Paul looked up, his face changed colour for a moment and he asked the
+visitors to be seated. He knew two of the men and they introduced the
+third.
+
+"Senator Douglas, this is Judge Livingston of Camford. We want a talk, a
+private talk with you on political business," said the speaker, the Hon.
+George Maxwell, as he looked at Bauer.
+
+"This young man is a friend of mine, spending the holidays with us,"
+said Paul quietly, and he introduced Bauer to the three visitors.
+
+There was a pause, and then Mr. Maxwell said, "We want a private
+conference with you, Mr. Douglas, if you don't mind." Bauer started to
+go out and Paul said to him, "You don't have to go unless you prefer."
+
+"I'll go back to the house, Mr. Douglas," Bauer said, and immediately
+went out.
+
+Maxwell started to shut the door after him.
+
+"Mr. Maxwell, that is not necessary," said Paul very distinctly. "I
+think I know what you have come to see me about. Let me say, gentlemen,
+once for all, that I have no secrets, and no use for any in my political
+life. I do not believe in all this private conference and closed doors
+in connection with any action of mine in the coming legislature. I am
+not going to do a single thing that will require me to whisper or retire
+behind any closed doors. So, seeing this is my office, and it is the
+regular custom to leave the door open, we will leave it open."
+
+The Hon. Maxwell looked doubtfully at Paul and the other visitors did
+the same. They finally went over to a corner of the office and whispered
+together. Then they came back, drew their chairs close up to Douglas's
+desk and Maxwell said:
+
+"Mr. Douglas, we have come to see you about some of these proposed bills
+of yours. This Reform business is being run into the ground. We are
+tired of it. The people are getting tired of it. You are going to have a
+great influence in the legislature. We concede that fact. Now, what we
+want to do is to talk over some of these bills and get your influence to
+modify or change in some ways."
+
+Paul listened thoughtfully and when Maxwell was through he said, "Will
+you mention the particular bills you have in mind? I am not certain I
+know after all just what your business with me is."
+
+Maxwell coughed and drew up his chair nearer. The other two men did the
+same. The hum of the presses was beginning to pervade the building as
+Maxwell, in reply to Paul's request, continued.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+"YOU see, Senator," said the Hon. Maxwell, "that the party is not agreed
+on these bills you are preparing. Take for example that bill, I
+understand you are the author of it, on public health. As we understand
+the matter, it is going to work great hardship on the retail dealer, and
+besides, pardon me, it is so full of fads and absurdities that it will
+make the party the laughing stock of the state. And there is that bill
+on public lands and investigating old entries. That will stir up an
+unnecessary lot of trouble and help to disrupt the party. You must
+remember, Senator, that while you call yourself independent in politics,
+you allowed your nomination to be made by the party, and you are one of
+us and have no right to split the party into factions. More than half
+these bills you are advocating in the _News_ are of questionable value
+and all of them, it seems to us, are calculated to make enemies in our
+own ranks. The thing for you to do, it seems to us, is to stand pat.
+Wages are good and the people are generally contented. Prosperity is
+beginning to come back and it is poor policy to stir up matters. I've
+been through a lot of campaigns and I want to say to you, Senator, that
+I know the people pretty well, sir, and the people are beginning to feel
+sore over all this reform business. They are beginning to feel that they
+can't turn around or do a thing without someone claiming the right to
+pass a law telling 'em how to do it. The effect of the reform measures
+you are advocating will be to disrupt the party."
+
+The Hon. Maxwell paused and his two friends nodded assent after his
+somewhat lengthy talk. Paul's first impulse was to get tremendously mad
+and tell the visitors to get out, as politely as it could be done in a
+hurry. Then his sense of humour and of right proportion came to save
+him.
+
+Maxwell he knew fairly well to be one of the most narrow minded type of
+politicians, honest enough so far as that went, but without a shred of
+real patriotism or any faintest glimmer of sense on matters of public
+welfare. His little soul revolved in a jerky and contracted orbit about
+the party. This orbit never took him out of sight of the "party." Under
+good men and bad in office, under defeat and under victory, under the
+varying vicissitudes of fortune that his meagre political life had known
+for forty years, he had never gone back on the party. He had held one or
+two minor offices in the course of his career and was deeply grateful to
+the party for recognising his right to an office. But when the party
+ignored him and put in some other creature, Maxwell never complained. To
+change the figure from the satellite and the orbit to a living organism,
+Maxwell was like Bill Syke's dog; no matter how the party treated him,
+he licked its hand just the same and showed the same loyalty and
+affection for the party when it kicked him down stairs as when it fed
+him at the pie counter. In forty years Maxwell had not learned a new
+idea or grown an inch in political stature. He was a party man and was
+proud of it. His one great virtue was that he was honest. He voted
+regularly for all sorts of thieves and boodlers and scoundrels nominated
+by the party, but he had in some marvelous fashion known only to his
+Maker, kept himself clear of all personal bribery and political
+trickery.
+
+All this Paul knew quite well, and he was not able to despise Maxwell on
+account of his one redeeming factor. But the slavery that had tied
+Maxwell body and soul all his life was so foreign to Paul's whole makeup
+that he could not understand it and he had to repress his natural desire
+to explode over Maxwell's talk. But he did manage to say quite calmly:
+
+"Mr. Maxwell, I appreciate your plea for the party, but I don't see
+things as you do. While I accepted the nomination, as you say, at the
+hands of the party, I distinctly outlined my views at the time and made
+no pledges that bind me either to the party or to measures, if these
+measures conflict with my own sense of what is for the best interests of
+the people. I think the people who elected me understand that I am free
+to act in that way. And, frankly, that is the way I intend to act. There
+may be some mistakes in some of these bills. It would be strange if
+there wasn't. But I believe they are for the good of all the people or,
+of course, I would not urge them."
+
+Maxwell shook his head doubtfully.
+
+"This reform business has gone too far. My friends here know that. Judge
+Livingston can tell you how the people out his way feel."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Livingston in a dry, machine-made manner; "Senator, the
+people in our district are growing restive over the reform business.
+They want to be let alone. We have too many laws now, laws that
+interfere with our personal liberty." (The judge grew eloquent.) "Laws
+that attempt to dictate to us what we shall eat and drink and where to
+go, and I for one say for my district that these continual efforts to
+legislate on personal matters will not only disrupt the party, but lead
+to a counter revolution that will surprise the so-called reform bosses
+of the state."
+
+Paul looked at the judge steadily. If he could have looked at him with
+an X-ray eye he would have seen a small sample whisky bottle in the
+judge's coat pocket, one of the adjuncts of "personal liberty" the judge
+was defending. Not seeing that, Paul did size up the man for about what
+he was and answered him accordingly.
+
+"As to legislation that affects personal liberty, these bills you say
+you have come to see me about deprive no man of any liberty he has a
+right to possess. But I am ready to confess they do deprive some persons
+of the liberty to steal the people's land and water power. They do aim
+to take away the liberty of certain food makers to poison the people,
+and of certain other food sellers to give the people short weight. Some
+of these acts are also designed to take from certain persons the liberty
+to demoralise youth, as for example the measure a number of us hope to
+get through the legislature regulating bill boards and indecent posters.
+For years a little company of men has insulted all the people with these
+public monstrosities. I am frank to say I have no scruples in depriving
+them of the liberty to do so any more. And as to dictating to the people
+what they should eat and drink, don't you think the saloon and the
+patent medicine men and the adulterated food makers and the dirty food
+sellers have been dictating to the people centuries enough, to give us
+some excuse for depriving them of their long monopoly to deal out
+sickness and death at wholesale? When you talk of 'personal liberty,' it
+is well to remember the fact that no man has any right to a personal
+liberty which results in evil to his neighbour or to society."
+
+The judge turned very red, and was on the point of replying. But
+Maxwell broke in.
+
+"This is aside from the question, Senator. The main fact you ignore. The
+main fact is that what you are planning to do will split the party."
+
+Paul lost his temper.
+
+"Let it split, then! I don't worship the party! What is the party by the
+side of the people?"
+
+Maxwell looked shocked. I think he really felt as he looked. Paul could
+not have said anything more treasonable.
+
+"Senator, you will regret those words. Mark me. You will regret it. One
+of the things I was going to say was------" Maxwell lowered his voice
+and looked around. "I was going to say that you have it in your power so
+to shape your own future that the governorship would come to you in two
+years, or the national senatorship. The party would be willing to
+reward a man like you------"
+
+Paul exploded again. "Governorship! Senatorship!" he almost shouted
+while Maxwell looked apprehensively at the open door.
+
+"Do you think I care about them as reward for political slavery?" Then
+he suddenly realised how useless it was to let a man like Maxwell
+understand.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said good naturedly, "excuse me. The occasion does not
+call for excitement. I understand your purpose in coming to see me. It
+will save your time and mine to say that I shall not change my plans to
+press these bills even if the result is to disrupt the party. And you
+are as free to say that as I expect to be in my editorial this evening."
+
+Maxwell nervously interrupted.
+
+"You are committing political suicide, Mr. Douglas."
+
+"That's better than hari kari, eh?" said Douglas with a smile.
+
+Maxwell stared. He had heard of hari kari perhaps, but did not know
+whether it was the name of a new type of airship or a health food. He
+went away with his two friends, firmly convinced, however, that the
+editor of the _News_ was on the road to political destruction.
+
+After Paul had written his editorial for the _News_ he was not certain
+himself that he had not really done what Maxwell predicted. He had
+certainly never spoken so plainly and even bluntly on the issues of the
+campaign, and he knew perfectly well that the Maxwell political type
+dominated thousands of voters, men who resent any act in politics which
+threatens to disarrange the smooth running of the machine. In politics
+it is almost as easy to raise a howl against reform as it is to raise a
+cry for it. There are thousands of party men in this republic who as
+long as they can make their bread and butter out of machine politics
+don't care what price the people have to pay for their bread and butter.
+
+When Paul went home that night he did what he had done for twenty-one
+years. The minute he was in the hall, he said, "Esther?" with an
+interrogation point after the name.
+
+Esther was upstairs in the upper hall. She replied in a subdued tone,
+"Yes, here I am," and Paul ran up three steps at a time to greet her.
+Marriage may be a failure with some people, but it certainly was not
+with Paul and Esther who had remained lovers all these years, simply
+because they had made their married life a joyful, sacred and deeply
+Christian compact, a genuine union of heart and head and soul. Paul
+wrote love letters to his wife, sent her flowers and in general courted
+her in much the same fashion Esther had known when Paul was a struggling
+reporter. And Esther kept herself bonny for his sake, entered in
+whole-souled fashion into his ambitions and was not afraid to debate
+politics with him and keep womanly. One great secret of their joyful
+married life was found in the perfect frankness each showed the other,
+and also in the blessed fact that each of them had almost a perfect
+physical constitution, not frayed nor tortured with nerves and
+sensitiveness.
+
+The minute Paul saw Esther he knew some unusual event had occurred. Paul
+was quick to detect the presence of any new thing because Esther's
+expressive face could never hide a great secret. Paul was on the point
+of asking what it was when his eye was attracted by a commotion going on
+behind the door of a cedar linen closet at the end of the hall. There
+was a sudden wrenching and tearing of cloth, then a great Jovian sized
+laugh, the door burst open and a huge figure stepped out into the hall
+where Esther stood laughing hard.
+
+"George Randall!" cried Paul, and the next minute he and his old pupil
+were in each other's arms.
+
+"As big as ever," cried Paul, as he stepped back to look at his
+unexpected visitor.
+
+"Bigger," said George, grinning. "Mrs. Douglas, if you'll get a needle
+and thread I'll mend my coat. You see, I just stepped in there to
+surprise you a minute and I backed up against a hook and it caught right
+under my collar and tore half of it off. What makes you make your
+closets so small?"
+
+While Paul was overwhelming Randall with greetings and questions, and
+Mrs. Douglas was sewing on the medical missionary's coat collar, Randall
+was explaining his unexpected appearance in Milton.
+
+"You see I've been transferred to Feu Chou Fu, the new hospital there.
+I've been called home by the board to help raise funds for the plant. I
+left so sudden I didn't have time to write you and I wasn't certain
+either that I would come here. But my father! Do you know about what's
+happened to him?"
+
+"No," said Paul. "I knew he'd been travelling with your mother for her
+health, but I haven't seen either of them for two years since they went
+abroad the last time."
+
+"My father is going to be a Christian! He and mother never took kindly
+to my going as a medical missionary, but last year they stopped to see
+me at Shaowu. I didn't know it at the time, but father was tremendously
+impressed with the missionary situation. Then over at Ponasang, father
+was taken ill, and what should happen to him providentially but he had
+to go to our hospital there. Dr. Wilder fixed up his body, and what is
+more he reached his soul, and father wrote me just before I left Feu
+Chou Fu that he had found the light after living in the dark all his
+life, and at the close of his letter said he and mother were on their
+way home to Milton and wanting to know how he could best serve the cause
+of Christ. I hardly slept all the way over to Vancouver for the joy of
+lying awake thinking of it. A cable from father reached me this morning
+from San Francisco, saying they would be at Milton next week. They
+sailed by way of Auckland and Honolulu. So I thought I might as well
+come and board with Mrs. Douglas and you until they arrived. You can
+open a can of something, and that will do for me, and I can hang myself
+up in the closet if you are short of beds.
+
+"But won't father and I have a jolly time when he gets back? I won't ask
+him for more than half a million to start with to put into the surgical
+department. Poor old pater! He has never had any fun with his old money.
+I'm going to help him have the time of his life now spending it for
+Christ and the Kingdom. My! But won't we have a jolly lot of fun with
+that money now?"
+
+That evening at the supper table George Randall simply fascinated the
+whole company with his stories of Chinese life and the victories of the
+gospel. Esther invited in her brothers, Walter and Louis. Felix Bauer
+had never seen anyone like Randall, and he sat the whole evening
+absorbed, listening to the recital of as marvellous a story of conquest
+as any to be found in the chapters of Caesar, Frederick the Great or
+Napoleon. And what a conquest! Not war and pillage and pitiful man's
+ambition for power, but conquest of that great territory called the
+human heart.
+
+"My, but I wish you folks could have seen what I saw there months ago at
+Shantung; five thousand people stood up in a public square in front of
+one of the old temples, no one knows how old, and threw thousands of
+idols into a heap on the ground and burned them, and then sang in their
+own language to our tune, 'Anywhere With Jesus I Can Safely Go.' For
+five days, much of the time through a pouring rain, more than five
+thousand people met to listen to the gospel of light and life and
+healing. We rigged up a sort of field hospital, using part of the temple
+for a clinic, and Walter and Rice and Colfax and I cut off legs and arms
+and heads of no end of diseased folks and operated for compound cataract
+and every known and unknown disease, and the Lord was with us. We didn't
+lose a case, and you never saw or heard such sights in prosaic
+money-loving America. Why, those people are born again! That whole
+district is simply awake out of several centuries' sleep. I have the
+consent of the high powers in that district to negotiate over here for a
+lot of machinery and stuff for agricultural purposes. And those people
+are putting up a church at Angfu that will beat any church in Milton for
+work and worship. Think of that, beloved! In a country that has stood
+still for twenty-five centuries, worshipping the past and bowing down to
+nineteen thousand filthy gods, you can hear 'My Faith Looks Up to Thee'
+and 'All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name' sung by congregations so big
+that they have to meet out doors. And yet I understand from reading one
+or two high-browed religious magazines printed in this country that the
+old gospel has lost its power and that the world must have a new brand
+of religion of the hermetically canned variety suited to the elevated
+culture and new thought of the times. But the old gospel seems to do the
+work in China all right. At any rate it makes real men and women out of
+animals, and changes sinners into saints. I don't know any test of a
+religion bigger than that, do you?"
+
+Paul asked one or two questions and started Randall off on an account of
+a missionary tour into the unexplored parts of west China. Then he spoke
+of the contemptuous criticism offered by a certain type of globe
+trotters he had met on his way home. In telling about this his great
+form seemed to tower up and his great head with its mild blue eyes
+looked sternly gigantic with righteous indignation.
+
+"There was a bunch of naval officers coming over on the _Zarina_ with
+us, and some of them were quite fine fellows. But there was one officer
+who used to get out with the author of a book on the Eastern situation,
+and they would spend hours criticising the missionaries and laying the
+blame on them for all the Boxer troubles and the hatred of foreigners
+generally.
+
+"I didn't know until later on that the reason for the distinguished
+author's feelings against missionaries was because some of his own
+personal immoralities had been rebuked by a missionary in Pao Ting Fu
+and he had been mad ever since.
+
+"His friend, the naval officer (and I was thankful he didn't belong to
+our country), took great pride in describing his conquests with the fair
+sex in the different quarters of the globe where he had been on his war
+vessel.
+
+"Think of that, dearly beloved! Here was a man who when he touched at a
+foreign port had no more exact knowledge of the work done by
+missionaries than the knowledge he gained from going to a high-priced
+ball or champagne supper held a few feet from the shore, expressing the
+most emphatic opinions concerning the value of a foreign missionary's
+life and influence! He changed his costume several times a day. And I
+learned from a midshipman who volunteered the information that the
+following comprises the regular and compulsory list of clothes a naval
+officer in this Christian age is obliged to possess and solemnly wear on
+the proper occasions. Want to hear it?"
+
+Louis, who had of late been begging his father to let him try for a
+place in a naval academy, eagerly said, "Yes, tell us, Mr. Randall."
+
+"Well, here is a list of this human being's clothes that he must,
+according to the naval rules, lug around the world with him:
+
+"A double-breasted frock coat of dark navy blue cloth with a sleeve
+stripe of gold lace a quarter of an inch wide and a gold star, which
+indicates the line officer. 'Service coat of blue cloth and with the
+same sleeve lace and a gold foul anchor on the collar.' 'White service
+coat with gold shoulder marks indicating the rank.' 'Evening dress coat
+of blue cloth with gilt buttons and sleeve lace.' 'Blue evening dress
+waistcoat with gilt buttons.' 'Whiteevening dress coat.' 'White mess
+jacket.' 'Full dress trousers of blue cloth and gold lace a quarter-inch
+wide.' 'Undress blue trousers, plain.' 'White trousers and many of
+them.' 'Service overcoat of heavy blue cloth.' 'Cloak of blue cloth.' 'A
+black mackintosh.' 'Blue uniform cap.' 'White uniform cap.' 'Cork or
+pith helmet.' 'Sword with sword knot.' 'Leggings.' 'A suit of rain
+clothes.' 'Black satin or silk, four-in-hand tie.' 'Plain black tie for
+evening dress uniform.' 'White gloves.' 'Black shoes.' 'White shoes.'"
+
+In the pause that followed this reading, Louis looked disappointed.
+
+"Would I have to get all these and take care of them if I went into the
+navy?"
+
+"That's right, my boy, and not only get 'em but wear 'em at the proper
+times. My! Think of how you would have to hustle yourself out of one
+suit into another in order not to break some rule of naval etiquette."
+
+"And think of Louis," said Helen, "who can't find his clothes in the
+morning when he has only one suit to look after, keeping track of all
+that. Why, that is enough to give a girl nervous prostration, to say
+nothing of a boy."
+
+"I guess I don't want to enter the navy," said Louis in disgust.
+
+Everybody roared, and then Randall said gravely:
+
+"Do you know, beloved, that while I pray the Lord every day to keep me
+from judging my fellow men, I just couldn't for the life of me help
+passing judgment on a civilised custom which keeps alive all this war
+fuss and feathers and asking men made in God's image to strut around in
+all this gilt and lace toggery when immortal creatures are starving to
+death by the million for the bread of life. And I just couldn't keep
+still when day after day I heard on deck this naval fashion plate
+girding at men and women whose plain shoes he wasn't worthy to black.
+One day I up and gave him some real information about missionaries. He
+had to listen, and when I got through, to my great joy, a plainly
+dressed gentleman corroborated what I said and went me several better,
+saying that the real awakening of China and Turkey and Japan and India
+was due to the great work done by the missionaries. During his talk it
+turned out he was the British Consul at Hong Kong, quietly travelling
+home by way of America. I haven't had anything do me more good in years
+than that little incident."
+
+The Douglas family stayed up late that night and two nights following.
+Then Randall went to his father's, to the great regret of all.
+
+Two weeks after that Felix Bauer, who was getting more out of this visit
+at his friend's than he had ever experienced before, went into the
+library and sat down by the long table. The family was scattered, Paul
+at his office, Esther in the kitchen, Walter visiting some old friends
+out at the college, Louis not yet home from his uncle's. Felix picked up
+a magazine and began to read. He was fairly started in a story when
+Helen came in. Bauer instantly arose and bowed in his slow but pleasant
+manner. Helen went over to a favourite seat of hers in the corner of the
+library and sat down, looking at Bauer earnestly.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+FELIX BAUER very seldom began a conversation with anyone and on this
+occasion he did not venture to say anything first. During his whole stay
+in the house, Helen had learned that fact about his habits as a talker.
+He was a splendid listener and that made him popular with anyone who
+talked to him. If you want to be popular you don't have to be a
+brilliant talker. Being a brilliant listener is better.
+
+But Helen had a touch of her father's stubbornness on certain occasions.
+She was not in any sense what could be called a flirt, or a girl who
+planned, out of a set purpose, to make a conquest or use her powers of
+attractiveness to disturb the peace of her young men acquaintances. But
+she was vain to a certain degree, and she knew when she looked in her
+mirror that she was unusually attractive, as every beautiful woman
+knows, and Felix Bauer was different from the other young men she knew.
+She said to herself as she looked across the room at him that he was
+certainly no fashion plate and was in fact extremely plain looking, all
+but his eyes, and Helen acknowledged that Walter was right when he wrote
+that Bauer had the most beautiful brown eyes he ever saw in a human
+being. When Helen was a little girl she had once seen Phillips Brooks,
+and she had never forgotten his wonderful eyes. Bauer's were like that.
+She could not help wondering what sort of people his parents were and
+what his home life was. The stubborn feeling prompted her to say to
+herself, "I'll make him speak first. He doesn't need to be so stupid.
+And besides it is not gentlemanly in him always to wait for the other
+person to begin."
+
+She was working at some piece of embroidery, which is an advantage in
+helping one in situations of possible embarrassment to keep up an
+appearance, at least, of self-possession. And the pattern being a
+difficult one gave her the excuse of keeping her eyes fixed on her work
+most of the time. She sat there in the corner absolutely dumb, waiting
+for Bauer to speak. A noisy little clock on the shelf over the grate
+ticked away at least three minutes. Bauer opened his lips once or twice
+as if to say a word, but nothing came of it. He looked at Helen almost
+appealingly and once he seemed on the point of leaving the room. But
+Helen's eyes were fixed on her work and the silence was unbroken by any
+movement.
+
+At last Helen looked up after a longer period than any other, and to her
+disgust saw that Bauer had picked up the magazine he had dropped when
+she came in, and had resumed his reading, or at least seemed to have
+done so.
+
+For a minute she looked and felt vexed. "The horrid creature!" she
+exclaimed to herself, and then out loud she said in a sweet voice:
+
+"Is that an interesting story you are reading?"
+
+Bauer instantly closed the magazine and put it on the table.
+
+"I don't know yet. I haven't finished it."
+
+"Were you going to?"
+
+"Yes, some time."
+
+"Can't you tell me what the story is about?"
+
+"It's about two people," said Bauer tamely.
+
+"Is that all?" asked Helen after a pause on Bauer's part of several
+seconds.
+
+"They start out with a ridiculous misunderstanding and it seems to be
+getting worse."
+
+Helen looked amused and said, "Won't you go on?"
+
+"The young woman thinks the young man is in love with her. He isn't at
+all--that is--not yet, but he is afraid he will be."
+
+"Afraid? Is the girl so bad looking as that?"
+
+"No, she is enough good looking to make up for both of them. And he is
+in some need of it."
+
+Helen laughed. "These magazine stories are the most absurd things that
+ever were printed."
+
+"I think so myself."
+
+"What makes you read them then?"
+
+"I was just doing it to pass the time."
+
+"That's flattering."
+
+"Flattering?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Bauer was silent thirty seconds. Then he said, "Flattering to whom?"
+
+"To me, isn't it?"
+
+Bauer's face was a study. Helen laughed again.
+
+"Why didn't you speak to me when I came in?"
+
+"I didn't know you wanted to talk." Bauer looked actually hurt.
+
+"Honest?"
+
+"How could I know you wanted to talk."
+
+"A woman always cares, Mr. Bauer."
+
+"You seemed intent on your work and I am no mind reader."
+
+"I had made up my mind not to speak first. But I broke my
+determination." The noisy little clock made itself prominent during the
+next half minute and then Bauer, to Helen's surprise, actually led off
+with a question.
+
+"Would you tell me what you are making?"
+
+Helen held up her work. "It's a sofa pillow cover. I'm making it for
+Walter."
+
+Bauer looked at it gravely. Helen would not have been surprised if any
+one of a dozen of her men friends had said, "I'd give anything for one
+like it."
+
+But Bauer simply said, "It's beautiful. Walter is fortunate."
+
+"We are all grateful for your friendship with Walter. It's meant a great
+deal to him," said Helen with a burst of frankness.
+
+"His means everything to me. I can't tell you all it means."
+
+Another period was marked by the demonstrative clock and then suddenly
+Helen said, "Mr. Bauer, I wish you would tell me something about your
+folks, and your home."
+
+The simple question smote Bauer like a blow in his face. Instantly he
+said to himself, "Walter has not told the family about me, about the
+disgrace, about the ruined home." And at first he felt hurt that Walter
+had not put the family on their guard. It was not fair to expose him to
+such questions. How could a girl like Helen Douglas possibly be made a
+sharer in his tragedy? His father had been a small diplomat at
+Washington. His mother a high spirited American girl whose ambition had
+suddenly terminated on the eve of her husband's promotion to a higher
+post of responsibility, through a scandal that involved both her husband
+and herself. Both of them were in the wrong, and nothing but unusual
+effort on the part of those interested had kept the affair out of the
+papers, at least to a great extent, and besides, the numerous accounts
+of such home tragedies lessened the emphasis placed on this one, so that
+Bauer knew that the Douglas family, outside of the editor himself and
+Walter, were not associating him with an event which left him alone in
+the world to bear a disgrace that seemed at times to overwhelm him.
+
+But while Felix Bauer was simple hearted and clear souled as day
+himself, he did possess to a remarkable degree the power of
+self-possession and self-restraint. His soul had already to a certain
+degree learned the sad lesson of bearing disaster with calm inward
+poise. Whatever the tragedy might mean to him in the future, he was not
+so poor spirited as to let it ruin his own development or poison the
+peace of others. So he was able to say, after what seemed to Helen only
+a natural hesitation:
+
+"My people were both born in Germany. My mother was the daughter of the
+American Consul. I was born in this country. That accounts for my being
+so good a patriot."
+
+"And I suppose it also accounts for your unusually good use of English.
+Do you know you speak very correct and pure English, Mr. Bauer?"
+
+"No, do I?"
+
+"Yes, that is, what little you speak," said Helen with a smile. "Do you
+want to know what I asked Walter in one of my letters?"
+
+"Yes," said Bauer, blushing.
+
+"I asked him if you spoke broken English very badly?"
+
+Bauer did not reply to this and Helen came back to the question of his
+home life.
+
+"Do your folks live in Washington now?"
+
+"Yes, that is"--all Bauer's self restraint could not avoid betraying
+something, and Helen looked at him quickly, and her quick eager mind
+could not avoid detecting something wrong. She would not for the world
+have been guilty of a vulgar curiosity or an intrusion into another's
+secret, and she had enough tact to say at once:
+
+"I've always wanted to go to Washington. Father has promised to take me
+some time. There must be a great deal of happiness there?"
+
+Bauer looked at her, his great eyes calmly sad. Then he quoted:
+
+"'Gluck und Glas wie bald bricht das?'"
+
+Helen did not know enough German to understand.
+
+"Would you mind translating?"
+
+"'Happiness and glass, how soon they are broken.'"
+
+"You mean some kinds of happiness, don't you?" asked Helen timidly.
+
+"Yes, some kinds."
+
+"I hope you have had some of the unbreakable kind during your visit
+here?"
+
+"Yes." But down deep in his quiet soul Felix Bauer was almost saying to
+himself, "Will it be for me the heart-breaking kind of happiness?"
+
+After another interlude, which the assertive clock took advantage of,
+Helen said, "I wish you would tell me something about your work at
+Burrton."
+
+"My work?"
+
+"Yes, your shop work. Your invention work. You know we were all terribly
+disappointed that you and Walter did not get the patent. But there are a
+great many other chances to discover things, aren't there?"
+
+"Well, yes. I suppose there are." Bauer began to wake up mentally. His
+face took on an alert look and the glow of the born inventor enveloped
+his whole being. "You see, Miss Douglas, the field of electricity is in
+one sense limitless. We know so little about it. And I suppose it is
+true that new things are possible to an extent beyond our imagination."
+
+"You mean inventions?"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"That's what interests me particularly. I should think it would be
+awfully fascinating to find new things."
+
+Bauer looked doubtfully at her. Helen was quick to detect the slight
+hint of suspicion as to her sincerity.
+
+"Do you doubt? What makes you?"
+
+"Well, I--it isn't common for girls to care much about such things
+generally, and I couldn't help------"
+
+Bauer stumbled along painfully and finally stopped, and Helen was cruel
+enough to enjoy his confusion.
+
+"But I am interested, Mr. Bauer. I really am. And you must believe I am.
+You will, won't you?"
+
+"Yes! yes!" Bauer flung the last shred of his doubt to the winds and
+eagerly begged pardon for his distrust.
+
+"All right. Now that we have settled the quarrel, we will be good
+friends, won't we?"
+
+"Yes," said Bauer, smiling. "If you want to call it a quarrel."
+
+"It was a quarrel all right," said Helen hastily. "Now you must tell me
+what your ambitions are, what you are really working for. I have
+wondered often if it wasn't awfully dangerous to be experimenting with
+electricity, and how do you try new things with wires and batteries and
+dynamos and--and--things without getting killed several times while you
+are trying?"
+
+"It's not as dangerous as some other things," thought Bauer, as Helen,
+in her real earnestness, put her work down and came across the room and
+took a chair by the table opposite him. If she had been a real coquette
+intent on making an onslaught on poor Bauer she could not have chosen a
+more perfect way to do it. For if you want to engage the hearty good
+will of anyone, ask him rapid fire questions about the one thing he is
+most interested in and would like to talk about, if his modesty did not
+forbid.
+
+So Felix Bauer was never in so electrically dangerous a situation in all
+his life as at this moment when Helen Douglas came over and sat down
+there with a real eagerness to know about his ambitions as an inventor.
+For Helen was honestly interested in many things that naturally belong
+to mere man's domain, especially in the realm of mechanical invention.
+
+"Walter has told me what you said about making a writing machine that
+would take a visible spelled word on paper when you talked into it. You
+don't really think a thing like that could be done, do you?"
+
+Bauer looked at the handsome quizzical face opposite, gravely.
+
+"Do _you?_ How do you dare say what can or cannot be done in the great
+universe of electricity?"
+
+"But it would throw out a great army of stenographer girls and that
+would be a pity. Only, you know," said Helen demurely, "Walter could
+marry one of them and you could marry another. That would take care of
+two of them."
+
+Bauer stared, and then blushed furiously and finally laughed.
+
+"Walter has been taking my name------"
+
+"Not in vain," interrupted Helen. "I thought your suggestion for the
+talking machine was fascinating. I don't suppose you are working at
+that, are you?"
+
+"No. I haven't got that far yet."
+
+"Can you tell me if you are working on some new thing?"
+
+"I don't mind." Bauer got up and pulled a piece of paper towards him and
+began to sketch something. Helen got up and went to the end of the table
+where she could see better.
+
+"There, Miss Douglas. This is my idea for a chicken raiser."
+
+"An incubator?"
+
+"Yes. You see this dome is glass, very much like those domes the glass
+blowers make to put over their glass ships and flowers. The bottom here
+is wood. The eggs are placed on it in even rows. Here is a hole in the
+bottom through which the electric lamp is put. A thermostat will
+regulate the temperature to a fraction of any degree. And--that is all
+there is to it except to try it on the eggs to see if they will really
+hatch out."
+
+"I don't see how they could help it!" said Helen enthusiastically.
+
+"I don't either. There's only one thing I can see that is essential."
+
+"What is that?" Helen asked eagerly.
+
+"The eggs will have to be good," said Bauer solemnly.
+
+Helen in her eagerness to see the drawing, had edged around the table
+and her face was near Bauer's as she bent over the drawing. She stared
+at Bauer's solemn face a moment and then burst out laughing, at the same
+time moving back to the end of the table.
+
+"I believe you are making fun of me," she said. In reality there was a
+part of Bauer's nature which was unexpected. His quiet habits and his
+slow speech were apt to give an impression of dullness of intellect and
+lack of mental quickness. Helen was finding out that Bauer was in many
+ways the quickest of all her acquaintances. And he had a fund of
+smileless humour that came as a surprise even to those who thought they
+knew him best.
+
+"No, I was not making fun of you," said Bauer. As a matter of fact, he
+was on the defensive with his own feelings, trying by any means to beat
+them down into the lonesome place where they belonged when that radiant
+face appeared so near his own.
+
+"Have you tried the machine yet to see if it will work on good eggs?"
+asked Helen, after a pause, during which Bauer drew a few more lines on
+the paper.
+
+"No, I'm going to make a full trial of it when I go back to Burrton."
+
+"And if it should be a success, I suppose there would be money in it
+too, wouldn't there?"
+
+"I suppose so," said Bauer indifferently.
+
+"Then you might actually become rich?"
+
+"I suppose I might. A man who invented a little mouse trap, I
+understand, made a fortune from it. There are all sorts of possibilities
+in the world of invention."
+
+"Would you care to be rich?" asked Helen absently.
+
+"I might." For the first time in his life Felix Bauer had flash into his
+soul the power of money to buy, what? Love? Would it be worth anything
+if it could be bought? And yet women like Helen Douglas felt the power
+of money and--and--demanded it in the young man who aspired to be a
+possible wooer in this age. Was she like all the rest? And if he should
+some time be rich would that make any difference? And if so, what
+difference?
+
+"Money is a great power nowadays," said Helen calmly.
+
+"Yes," said Bauer, slower than usual. And at that moment Mrs. Douglas
+came in.
+
+"Are you willing to show this to mother?" asked Helen.
+
+"Certainly," said Bauer, smiling. "I am sure she will not betray my
+secret."
+
+Mrs. Douglas, who had instantly taken a great liking to Bauer from the
+moment of his arrival, was as enthusiastic as Helen and praised the
+inventor until he was well nigh overwhelmed.
+
+"I need all this encouragement to help me face Anderson. He will
+probably pick some flaw in it somewhere. He is merciless with all the
+fellows."
+
+"I don't see what a teacher is for," said Helen indignantly. "Half of
+the teachers I know pound at the students all the time instead of giving
+them encouragement."
+
+"They probably need it," said Mrs. Douglas, wisely.
+
+"Mr. Bauer is going to get rich with his invention," said Helen gaily.
+
+"I'll tell you what I will do, if it goes," said Bauer cheerfully. "I'll
+divide with Walter. We'll manufacture the incubator ourselves and so get
+all the profits."
+
+"Don't count your chickens before they are hatched," said Mrs. Douglas,
+and then added gratefully, "I appreciate that thought of Walter. The
+poor fellow seems to have lost his ambition since the affair of the arc
+light. I know you will do all you can to encourage him."
+
+"Indeed I will, Mrs. Douglas. I can't tell you how much I owe to Walter.
+He is like a brother to me."
+
+The minute he uttered the words he caught himself up and half turned,
+blushing furiously, towards Helen. But she had already started to go out
+of the library and Bauer was not sure that she had heard him or paid any
+attention.
+
+Mrs. Douglas, however, had seen his face and his half startled look and
+deepening colour, and her own face grew grave. It did not seem possible
+to her that anything serious could happen to the quiet German student
+during his brief stay with the family. And yet, she was a wise and
+observant woman who did not at all blind herself to the fact that her
+daughter had natural gifts of physical and mental attractions, which
+young men like Bauer inevitably feel. And it needed only this one
+glimpse of Bauer's face to reveal to her quick mother's sense the fact
+that Helen had attracted him, how far or how deeply for the loss of his
+own peace, of course she could not tell.
+
+It was partly on that account that Mrs. Douglas welcomed Helen's
+confidence when, that same afternoon, the girl came into her mother's
+room and after a few moments of nervous, restless and aimless talk came
+and sat down on a low chair near Mrs. Douglas and said, "Mother, I want
+a plain talk."
+
+"A plain talk" in the Douglas family meant heart secrets, and Mrs.
+Douglas knew at once what Helen wanted.
+
+"Hide nothing," said Esther, smiling, and patting Helen's head
+cheerfully.
+
+"Hide nothing," repeated Helen, with a faint smile; which meant that the
+utmost frankness was going to be shown on both sides.
+
+"Mother," said Helen, after a pause of some length during which her
+mother calmly went on with her sewing. "How old were you when you were
+married?"
+
+"Not quite twenty-two."
+
+"And how old was father?"
+
+"Twenty-six. Almost twenty-seven."
+
+"Were you very much in love with him?"
+
+Esther let her work fall from her hands into her lap, and looked out
+across the room over her daughter's head. The passing of the years had
+not dimmed the love light in Esther's eyes nor faded the glow of the
+love look on her face.
+
+"I can't tell you how much I was in love with him. He was the whole
+world to me."
+
+"More than your own father and mother?"
+
+"Yes, more."
+
+"More and different?"
+
+"Yes, more and different."
+
+There was another pause and Helen put her hand up to her mother's. The
+girl had not yet looked up. Her eyes were cast down and she seemed very
+thoughtful.
+
+"Mother, do you think I will ever feel that way? As you did?"
+
+Mrs. Douglas was startled by the question, in spite of the fact that
+from Helen's babyhood the utmost frankness had existed between them. She
+wanted a few moments before she spoke. Helen was "till looking down, but
+her hand tightened its hold on her mother's.
+
+"Yes, Helen, I would not wish you any greater happiness than to love as
+your mother did."
+
+"But men like father seem very scarce."
+
+Mrs. Douglas could not help laughing, and at that Helen looked up
+soberly.
+
+"You know they are, mother," said Helen almost indignantly. "Just look
+at that Randolph boy. And--and--Mr. Damon. I don't believe there are any
+young men like father was when he was young. Wasn't he very handsome?"
+
+"He certainly was, and he is now."
+
+"And didn't he talk sensibly? Didn't he know how to say things?"
+
+"He didn't say anything very wise or deep while he was courting me,"
+laughed Esther. "I would not dare say how many foolish things he said. I
+don't remember all of them."
+
+"Mother, you know what I mean. The young men nowadays can't talk any.
+They don't know half so much as the young women. Why, I feel superior to
+all the young men I know."
+
+Mrs. Douglas looked amused.
+
+"And I could never marry an inferior man. I would just despise myself
+and him, too. But why should I get married at all, mother? Why can't I
+just be a physical training teacher all my life?"
+
+"I don't want you to marry an inferior man, You would just despise
+yourself and if you do not love in a natural way someone who is
+altogether worthy of you, you ought never to marry at all. What has made
+you think of it?"
+
+Helen did not look up, and after a long pause Esther said gently, "Hide
+nothing?"
+
+Then Helen looked up suddenly and burst out: "That horrid Mr. Damon
+proposed to me last night! I went with him to the organ recital and he
+was very nice at first, but on the way home he made a fool of himself
+and tried to make one of me. I told him I wouldn't marry him if he was
+the only man left. Why, mother, he is ten years older than I am, and he
+has false teeth and I believe he wears a wig and he makes a living
+selling rubber goods!" And at that Helen burst into a flood of weeping,
+laying her head down in her mother's lap.
+
+When she was cried out, Esther said: "Mr. Damon is a good man, or I
+wouldn't have let you go with him. But I had no idea he was thinking of
+you that way. Of course he is out of the question. Not on account of the
+false teeth, the wig and the rubber goods, for women marry men with
+those encumbrances every day and are happy, but for other reasons."
+
+"Mother, did you ever have any other proposals besides father's?"
+
+"Yes, I had three while I was in college."
+
+"At my age?"
+
+"I was two years younger."
+
+"That makes me feel better some; but I don't want such things to come to
+me. It frightens me."
+
+"Daughter, you probably know you are more than good looking. Do you?"
+
+"Yes," said Helen, in a low tone.
+
+"It is a great gift, but it is a dangerous one. You must use it in the
+right way."
+
+"Mother, I do try. I am not a flirt, am I, mother?" Helen looked up
+appealingly.
+
+"Look right into my eyes, mother, and see?"
+
+Mrs. Douglas looked and with a sigh of relief saw there as pure and
+womanly a soul waiting development as ever lived.
+
+"No, thank God, Helen, I believe you realise what your beauty might mean
+to bless or to curse. But sometimes the hurt comes in spite of one's
+self."
+
+There was a very long pause and then Helen said timidly, "Mother, you
+are thinking of someone in particular. I have tried to be very careful.
+I had to be kind. But how could I know------"
+
+"You mean Felix Bauer?"
+
+"Yes, mother."
+
+"Do you mean he has spoken to you in so short a time?"
+
+"No, no, mother, not spoken. Only, only, looked at me. You don't blame
+me, do you, do you, mother?"
+
+Helen began to cry again, but in a different way from the outburst
+before. She cried softly and Mrs. Douglas could feel the girl's hand
+pressing her arm convulsively.
+
+She was really puzzled to know what to say in spite of the evident fact
+that Felix Bauer had simply yielded to the inevitable through no fault
+of Helen's or anybody's. At last she said:
+
+"Do you feel superior to Mr. Bauer?"
+
+Helen raised her head and blushed as she looked up.
+
+"Why, no, that is, of course, he knows German and I don't, and he knows
+a lot about electricity and I don't and--and------"
+
+"He's not much of a talker," said her mother.
+
+"No, but on that account he avoids saying so many foolish things. And he
+is very interesting, and, and, good. But he is only a poor student and
+it looks now as if he might grow up to be nothing but a manufacturer of
+incubators to raise chickens."
+
+"Which is almost as bad as rubber goods," murmured Esther.
+
+Helen did not reply. After a while her mother said, "Tell me just one
+thing dear, if you can. Do you care for Mr. Bauer?"
+
+Helen bent her head and warm colour flowed over her cheeks, then she
+looked up.
+
+"No, mother, not that way."
+
+Mrs. Douglas sighed and said to herself, "Poor Bauer. He will have to
+outlive it somehow. I hope his studies will help him out."
+
+That was what Bauer was saying to himself back in Burrton after that
+eventful Christmas vacation. He had parted with the family in a cheerful
+fashion, but all his self-possession and restraint and feeling of utter
+hopelessness regarding Helen could not prevent his giving her a look
+that told his story as plain as day when he said good-bye. Helen had
+gone upstairs and cried half the forenoon at the memory of Bauer's face.
+But Bauer did not know that. Neither did he know that the very fact of
+his silence had made Helen think favourably towards him. He had at least
+succeeded in securing a place in Helen's exclusive list of possible
+lovers, for she was obliged to confess as the days went on that she
+missed Felix Bauer, and that she could not say of him as she could of
+all her other admirers that she was superior to him.
+
+It might have gone badly with Felix Bauer at this crisis in his life if
+an event had not occurred which compelled him to come to Walter's
+assistance. This event was as unexpected to Walter as anything could be.
+And the suddenness of it smote both the friends for a time into a
+condition of mutual dependence.
+
+The President of Burrton followed the custom in other schools of
+inviting some well known speaker to have charge of the chapel services
+for special lectures or religious addresses. When the announcement was
+made that Dr. Powers, the eminent scholar and theologian, would preach
+at Burrton on a special date, Walter and Bauer both planned to go, and
+when the time came they found themselves in the audience with one of the
+largest crowds that had ever gathered at Burrton Chapel service.
+
+The address was on the subject of "Modern Belief." As the speaker went
+on, Walter, who had at first not paid close attention, began to fasten
+his whole hearted and minded interest on the statements that were being
+made. As the talk went on, Walter felt as if all the ground of his
+religious faith was slipping out from under him. The speaker gradually
+unfolded a universe of religious thought from which all the miracles
+were excluded. There was no reason, he said, for believing in the
+superhuman or the wonderful. Everything in the Bible could be explained
+on natural grounds and what could not be explained was either a mistake
+or a misapprehension on the part of the writers. God was defined as a
+power and all personality taken from him. Christ was only a superior man
+who said many things not agreeing with the facts of modern psychology.
+Much of his forecast of the future had been discredited. There was no
+such thing as a resurrection and a future existence was very
+problematical.
+
+When the address was over, Walter sat like one dazed and did not rise to
+go out. Bauer whispered to him:
+
+"Are you sick?"
+
+"No," said Walter with an effort. He rose and went up to his room and
+Bauer, who did not know what was the matter, went in with him, as the
+two friends invariably spent their Sunday evenings together.
+
+But on this occasion Walter almost stunned Bauer with a request made in
+a low voice.
+
+"I want to be alone, Bauer, if you don't mind."
+
+Bauer rose at once.
+
+"I am on hand to serve you, Walter. Don't forget?"
+
+"No," Walter said abruptly.
+
+Bauer went out, and Walter went into his bedroom and got down on his
+knees.
+
+That same evening at Milton, Mrs. Douglas had just gone up to her room,
+and as her custom had been for years, she had kneeled to pray for her
+children and especially for her absent boy.
+
+Over both mother and son the darkness brooded. Only the stars shone
+through it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WALTER DOUGLAS was not what would be called ordinarily a religious young
+man. That is, he was not pious, in the sense that he was a lover of
+prayer meetings and church gatherings. He was a member of the
+Congregational church at Milton and had joined it from the Sunday School
+when he was twelve years old, growing up in the church like any average
+boy whose father and mother were members. He had a tremendous respect
+for his father's and mother's religious life and example and would
+probably have been willing to die for their faith if not for his own.
+For the rest, he had grown up in the home atmosphere, which from his
+childhood had been deeply reverent towards the Bible and the superhuman
+element.
+
+The effect on his mind, now, of the address he had just heard, was very
+much the same as if someone far above him in education and age had
+attacked his father and mother, bringing forward a great array of
+argument and proof to show that they were unworthy of his love and
+confidence. Walter's mind could not have been more disturbed by such an
+attempt than it actually was by what had been said that evening,
+undermining his lifelong confidence in Christ as a divine being, and the
+superhuman and miraculous as part of his own life.
+
+He was stunned by it and at first his only desire was to be alone. As
+the night wore on, this desire gave way to a longing for counsel from
+someone who could answer his questions and relieve his mind of the
+terrible uncertainty which had invaded it. And it was at least a strange
+comment on the teaching force in the Burrton school that Walter at this
+crisis could not think of anyone to whom he cared to go with a religious
+doubt. There were plenty of men at Burrton occupying responsible places
+as professors or instructors who knew plenty of mathematics and physics
+and electricity and engineering and science. But not one that Walter
+could think of who knew or cared about a student's moral or religious
+character. The president was a keen, wide-awake, sharp man of affairs,
+but as Walter thought of him he shrank from the idea of going to him
+with a real heart trouble or with a genuine mental difficulty. He would
+as soon have thought of telling his personal griefs or sorrows into a
+phonograph. And yet President Davis of Burrton was a church member, a
+highly educated gentleman, a great money getter from rich men, and had
+the reputation in the educational world of being a success as such
+school presidents go. He could extract half a million for Burrton from
+some great pirate of industry, but he did not know how to extract a
+poisonous doubt from a tortured mind like Walter's, or, better yet,
+instill the balm of healing faith into a spirit that had for the time
+being lost its God and its heaven. Great thing, our boasted education
+is, isn't it! How many of our cultured, highly developed university men
+are all head and no heart! And yet in the history of this old world who
+would dare say that in the long run it does not need more heart than
+head, or at least an equal division of each, for its comfort, its
+happiness and its real progress?
+
+Walter, going over the list of possible men who might help him now,
+thought of the pastor of the Congregational church in Burrton. This man
+was a strong, earnest pastor, a tireless worker and an interesting
+preacher. But here again Walter had no one to blame but himself that he
+did not feel well enough acquainted with this man to go to him with his
+personal religious questions. He had been to the church several times
+and he always liked the Rev. James Harris, but like so many students who
+are attendants and workers in their own churches, Walter on coming to
+Burrton had found it easy to lapse into lazy Sunday morning habits.
+After he had a late breakfast and read the Sunday morning _Daily
+Megaphone_, it was generally too late to go to the Sunday School and it
+was easier on stormy Sundays to curl up on a lounge and read a novel, or
+on pleasant Sundays to stroll out to the lake two miles away and get an
+appetite for a big dinner. Then an afternoon of sleep or visiting or
+walking out used up the rest of the day for him. One of the topics he
+had avoided with his mother on his recent visit home had been his Sunday
+program, and he recalled even now the earnest wish she had expressed
+that he would get to work in the Sunday School when he went back to
+Burrton. No, he had been so indifferent to all church matters while a
+student that he could not bring himself to go to the minister, he was
+too much a stranger to him, and this was a matter that seemed to call
+for a friend.
+
+"Oh, I wish mother was here!" he exclaimed out loud.
+
+And then because he felt so hungry for comfort and so eager to relieve
+his mind of its burden, he went over to his writing desk, and wrote a
+long letter to his mother.
+
+When he finished, it was after one o'clock and he went to bed and slept
+as if exhausted, but to his dismay when he awoke, his depression and
+fear were there to greet him and he found himself waiting for his
+mother's answer almost as if her letter were a reprieve from a sentence
+of death.
+
+A part of this letter will reveal Walter's excited and even chaotic
+feeling.
+
+"The bottom seems to be dropped right out of everything, mother. Of what
+use is it to try to do right when there isn't any likelihood of a future
+and no personal God and no Redeemer, and no standard for conduct? The
+doctor said we could not depend upon Christ's own statements about his
+own resurrection. How then can we trust Him for any statement He made
+about Himself? The fellows here in Burrton who have money to spend and
+do about as they please, the fast set that drinks and carouses and
+gambles and gives the chorus girls wine suppers seems to be pretty
+happy. They don't worry over the matter of sin or moral responsibility
+or going to church or getting serious over the condition of the heathen
+or the wrongs of the world, or the 'high calling' you are so fond of
+calling my attention to. And why should I be any different from them?
+Mother, does it pay to be religious? It seems to me religious people are
+always sober, dull people, always talking reform and disagreeable things
+and never having much fun. But I want you to help me, mother, no one
+else can, if you can't. I don't seem to be able to pray any. Why should
+I pray, if there isn't any super-human, nothing but a force somewhere? I
+am just groping in the dark and it's awful dark. And I don't know a soul
+here to help me any. Bauer--well--I never said a word to him on
+religious matters. I don't know whether he is a Catholic or what he is.
+And I don't know any minister in Burrton well enough to go to him. And
+the teachers here don't care about the students' religious life, or if
+they do I never saw any signs of it, at least not enough to show where
+to go now.
+
+"Mother, I can't tell you how I feel over all this. But I'm just about
+down and out. If what Dr. Powers said is true, it seems to me we are
+living in an awful world. It isn't the world you and father believe in
+or you taught me to believe in, and I can't understand it. Oh, mother,
+help me, won't you, if you can!                         WALTER."
+
+Now his letter reached Mrs. Douglas on the anniversary of her marriage.
+She was planning as she always did to make the day bright for Paul, had
+invited her brothers, Walter and Louis, and was going to make it a great
+family gathering.
+
+The boy's letter smote her heart as nothing in all his experience had
+ever troubled her. She managed to get through the evening without
+betraying her feeling, but when her brothers had gone home, and Helen
+and Louis had retired, she showed the letter to Paul.
+
+He read it and then looked up at Esther.
+
+"You are the one to help him through this," he said. "You are the only
+person who can do it right now. But you are tired with all the events of
+the day. Hadn't you better wait until to-morrow?"
+
+"No," Esther said positively. "He is waiting. When a soul is drifting
+down like his, it is a case of rescue."
+
+"Dear," said Paul, quietly, "I don't have any fears for him. He has too
+good a mother to make a wreck of his religion."
+
+"He is my son," said Esther proudly. "I would not be worthy of the name
+mother if I did not have confidence in the eternal things of redemption.
+I will write him tonight. But you must add to my letter, Paul. He needs
+us both."
+
+"I will," said Paul, gravely. He was more disturbed over the letter from
+Walter than he cared to acknowledge to Esther, but he managed to conceal
+his feelings for her sake. Esther went up to her little corner room,
+where she had a sewing table and a writing desk. When she had shut
+herself in there she spread Walter's letter out before the Lord.
+
+That meant that her simple mother faith said to God, "Oh, my Father, I
+need wisdom now to write this letter. My boy, my first born son is in
+need of Thee. But he has turned to his mother for help. Show me how to
+say the right thing. For I can not do it without thy help."
+
+And then without any hesitation or fear of the final result, Esther
+wrote to Walter. It was a sacred letter, but a part of it belongs to
+this narrative.
+
+"You must not forget, boy," Esther went on after cheerfully reminding
+him that he was not the only person in the world to have such an
+experience; "you must not forget that religion is a universal thing, and
+that it is a cry of the heart for God. It is not a matter to figure out
+like mathematics, but it is an answer to the real longing of the soul
+for a divine life in the world.
+
+"You must not forget, either, that your faith does not depend on what
+someone else says, but upon the actual needs of your own life. You know
+that you need God. You know that you are wretched now because you are
+afraid God has been taken away. Isn't that a sign to you that your
+simple faith as you have been taught it here at home is a real and
+necessary thing? What Dr. Powers said (and you must remember you may not
+have understood his full meaning), what he said has not changed the
+everlasting facts of sin and moral responsibility and the facts of the
+plain right and wrong of the world. And when it comes to the
+resurrection and a future life--all we can do is to take Christ's word
+for it. He knows more about it than Dr. Powers knows. Your mother is no
+theologian and no great scholar, but when it comes to taking Dr.
+Powers's word as against Jesus's own statements about himself, I don't
+hesitate, and you ought not to. Jesus is the way and the truth and the
+life. Just trust him. It is what thousands of souls bigger than yours
+have done and they have found the light as you will. We are praying for
+you, father and I. Father can give you better reasons than I can,
+perhaps, because he knows more, but listen to me, boy, to your mother,
+whose heart goes out to you at this time. You don't have to answer all
+the hard questions of religion all at once. Some of them can bide for an
+answer. But, oh, plant your feet down on the rock, Christ Jesus! Abide
+with him and your soul will not be lost. He will not let you go wrong.
+He came to give you abundant life. The love of God is greater than all
+other things. Trust simply and don't be afraid. Get to work in the
+Sunday school and church. Doubt can not live in the atmosphere of doing
+God's will every moment. Perhaps one reason you have been so overthrown
+is because you have neglected your church and religious duties since you
+left home. Pray; trust; act; live for others; listen for God's voice; be
+true to the high calling. It is the only real and living way for you.
+And the prayers of your mother go out to God for you now and always.
+Walter, you are God's child before you are mine. Go to him at once and
+ask his help as you have asked mine. May He bless you as I can not.
+Lovingly and prayerfully,
+
+                                "MOTHER."
+
+Mrs. Douglas was so eager to get her letter off that she did not wait
+for Paul's added word. But two days later Paul wrote quite at length, in
+much the same fashion, taking up one or two points Esther had not
+touched.
+
+"You say in your letter to your mother that you feel the bottom has
+dropped out of everything. Why? Because a stranger to you who has some
+reputation as a public speaker has made some statements which destroy
+your faith in religion.
+
+"Do you think that is a very sensible thing for you to do--to let a man
+you have never seen before come along and in one address take from you
+the faith of years? Would you let a man you didn't know destroy your
+faith in your mother so quickly? Would you simply take his word for it,
+because he said so?
+
+"You must remember, Walter, that some of the finest theologians and
+scholars in the world believe in and teach the miracles and a personal
+God and a personal divine Christ and a personal resurrection. I don't
+mean old fashioned scholars, but men who are up to date, who rank with
+the best in the thinking world. If Dr. Powers does not believe in the
+resurrection there are other men, better scholars than he is, who do.
+You have no right to let one man's statements be final for you.
+
+"You say again that you don't see what is the use of being good, and you
+ask if it pays to be religious, citing the example of the fast set in
+Burrton, who, you say, seem to be pretty happy, and free from anxiety
+about others, etc. Walter, do you know that is the most terrible thing
+that can be said about a human creature? That he is satisfied like an
+animal with an animal's appetite and passions, and careless of any one
+else or of the world's moral needs? The flies that buzz over a battle
+field have the same indifference for the agony and struggle going on
+under them. And would you even now while under the depression you
+describe, really care to risk your life by becoming like the men in the
+fast set? Don't you know that they are sowing the wind to reap the
+whirlwind?
+
+"The main facts of life always remain the same. We may learn more about
+the facts, but we can't change the real nature and needs of mankind by
+any belief or absence of belief. Even if there were no God and no future
+and no miracles and no Jesus of history, sin would be sin and its
+harvest the same; goodness and right and virtue would always be the same
+and their harvest the same. But men can not live without God without
+living in hopeless despair. Walter, what did Christ come into the world
+for, if not to do for us the very things we really needed and were dying
+to get? He revealed God to us. Made the future plain. Showed man his
+duty to his neighbour. Brought light and life and joy into the world.
+The Christmas season we have enjoyed together ought to show you (and it
+will when this cloud has gone from your heart) that the world owes more
+to Jesus Christ than to any other being. The best conditions in the
+world are found where Christ has been most honoured and his teachings
+best obeyed. The wrongs of the world are being righted in his name. And
+the kingdom of God is taking the place of the kingdoms of physical
+might.
+
+"All this, your father and mother believe, could not be true if Jesus
+were a mere man. It is the presence of the divine and superhuman, not
+supernatural, but superhuman, which has made all this redemption of the
+world possible.
+
+"Walter, trust in God. Believe in Christ. Pray. Seek the light. Keep
+doing right. Get to work for others. All the inventions in creation are
+not worth anything if your own soul has no motive power and no track to
+run on. Religion is as natural as eating and drinking. Prayer is as
+natural as sleep or work. And I believe with all my might that my
+feelings are as trustworthy as my reason when both are exercised in a
+healthy, happy way.
+
+"I haven't any fear for you. It is too bad you can not get help from
+some of the teachers in the school. There must be something wrong with
+the management of an educational institution when the teachers know
+everything except the moral needs of the students.
+
+"Can't your friend, Bauer, help you? You say you have never talked with
+him. Try it. From one or two talks I had with him while he was with us I
+gained the impression that he was deeply religious. Affectionately, your
+father,
+
+                                "PAUL DOUGLAS."
+
+Both of these letters reached Walter about the same time and he read and
+reread them and received vast help from them, more than he himself knew
+at the time. But he could not throw off the feeling of depression and
+fear that seemed to haunt his spirit. He longed to talk the thing over
+with someone and the day after his father's letter came, he resolved to
+take Bauer into his confidence. He had never talked with him on any
+serious questions except when Bauer had confided in him about his home
+troubles, and the occasions were rare and only occurred at times when
+Bauer was so tortured with lonesomeness that he could not endure it any
+longer and fled to Walter as he did that night in the shop, when he
+first appealed to him for his friendship.
+
+They had gone up to Walter's room together; and had just finished a
+discussion over Bauer's incubator and the arrangement for the thermostat
+when Walter said suddenly:
+
+"Felix, I can't talk this stuff any longer. I want to take up something
+else, if you don't mind. Of course, you've noticed I've not been up to
+the mark lately, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes." Bauer blushed as he said it. He had noted Walter's condition, but
+if truth be told his own state of hopeless feeling towards Helen had
+absorbed him to such an extent that he had not paid the attention to
+Walter's feelings that he otherwise might. No one quite so egotistic as
+your hopeless lover. The world of Bauer revolved around the star of
+Helen, and the rest of the universe, including Walter, was for the time
+being not counted as there. With Walter's trouble now made more apparent
+to him, Bauer's mind at once waked up and stood ready alert to listen to
+him.
+
+"I might as well confess that Dr. Powers's address two weeks ago knocked
+the props out from under me. What he said cut under me like a great
+engine that destroyed my faith."
+
+"You mean your faith in God?" asked Bauer in a tone almost of horror.
+
+"Well, no, not that exactly. I don't think anyone could reason me out of
+a belief in a God. But when Dr. Powers got through I felt as if all the
+God he believed in was a kind of electrical force, a little bigger unit
+of amperes. A sort of international ampere, so to speak, but not much
+more."
+
+"Do you mean that you can't say 'Our Father' any more?"
+
+Walter was silent half a minute. When he looked up at Bauer his face was
+haggard.
+
+"I haven't prayed any since that address. What is the use of prayer if
+God is a machine?"
+
+"But if God is a machine, who made the machine?"
+
+Walter stared. Bauer went on.
+
+"And if God is only high power electricity or force, who made the high
+power or force? One machine can't make another. And a machine that
+really thinks and plans, is not a machine but a Being."
+
+Walter did not answer. He was brooding. Finally he said: "Do you really
+believe in miracles and the superhuman and the resurrection and future
+and--and a Personal Redeemer and all that?"
+
+"Do I?" Bauer did a thing Walter had never seen him do before. He got up
+and began to walk the floor.
+
+"If I didn't believe in a personal God who loves me and in a Personal
+Redeemer who saves me and in a future life which is going to develop me,
+I might as well be just an animal and be done with it. What advantage
+have we over the animals if there is nothing to it but flesh and blood
+and eating and drinking and dying?
+
+"But I simply take my stand on what Jesus did and said and was. I don't
+go back on that to try to philosophise much, though I can give answers
+all day long for my religious faith. I wouldn't give anything for it if
+I couldn't reason it out. I've been through all the books--Kant and
+Hegle and Straus and Feuerbach and Schopenhauer and Schleiermacher and
+no end. My father was steeped in all the old world philosophies. I don't
+think they ever helped him any. At least not to make a better man of
+him. Why, Walter, do you know your father and mother are the products of
+Christian faith, and there isn't anything finer in all the world. Where
+would you go to find a human being who was nearer the perfection of all
+noble, unselfish, beautiful traits of character than your mother, who is
+the product of a simple Christian faith?
+
+"My father and mother have always sneered at simple faith. They are
+sceptics. What has their scepticism ever done for them? To-day they are
+both------" Bauer choked, and after a long pause, during which Walter
+looked at him sympathetically, he said quietly:
+
+"I had to have something different from their Godless scheme of life or
+I believe I would have gone mad. And, thank the Father, I found it. If I
+hadn't I'd been worse than the fastest of the fast set here. I wouldn't
+have stopped short of the vilest. I would have been a crowned head of
+beastliness. And nothing saved me from it but Jesus Christ. Could a man
+have done that? Could anyone have done it who didn't believe in a future
+and a spiritual life?"
+
+Bauer came back to his chair and sat down. Walter seemed much impressed
+by what he "said and the way he said it. At last he remarked
+thoughtfully:
+
+"You never told me anything of this before. I never understood you felt
+so, or had such a faith."
+
+"No, I've kept my light under a bushel. But man's religion is the most
+sacred thing about him. Why don't we talk more about it? I don't know
+unless with me it's been an excess of sensitiveness."
+
+"I understand and thank you, Felix," said Walter after another long
+silence.
+
+During the days that followed he had many more talks with Bauer, all of
+which did him vast good. Bauer, once he had opened the door of his soul,
+threw away all reserve and invited Walter into the very holy of holies.
+
+They also had plenty of argument. But Walter was no match for the German
+student, who in his long hours of solitary existence, had managed to do
+an astonishing quantity of reading and posted himself on all sorts of
+difficult subjects with the German habit of exactness and thoroughness
+in matters of detail, so that he soon had Walter hopelessly beaten when
+it came to debate over religion and its office.
+
+Finally Walter began slowly to regain his buoyancy and before the spring
+vacation he had found a standing place for his faith and a reason for
+his religion, so much so that he said to Bauer one Sunday evening after
+they had come up to the room after hearing Mr. Harris at the church:
+"Felix, I almost believe I could be a preacher. I believe I almost have
+a message."
+
+Bauer was immensely pleased.
+
+"You are going to come out all right. You couldn't help it with such a
+mother."
+
+And yet, strange as it may seem, at that very moment Walter's mother was
+passing through a crisis that was testing her Christian faith even more
+severely than Walter's had been tested. There could be no doubt at all
+but that Esther's pure and steadfast soul would win the victory; but oh,
+the heartache of sorrowing motherhood! Will it ever cease?
+
+Louis Douglas had been for several months a source of anxiety to both
+Paul and Esther. As winter wore on he complained more and more of
+school. One evening he broke out in such a torrent of appeal to his
+father to let him give up his studies that Paul compelled himself to
+think of the boy as his first duty and reproaching himself that he had
+paid little heed to him on account of political matters, he listened to
+Louis that evening and in a pause of his flood of words asked the boy to
+come into the library and have it out seriously.
+
+The legislature was in session and Douglas was overwhelmed with
+committee work, with shaping up bills, and winning converts to his ideas
+of reform. He had anticipated opposition and difficulties of various
+sorts, but the actual thing that confronted him was so much greater than
+he had supposed possible that he almost let go at one time, in disgust,
+and vowed he would never enter politics again. Next day he was back in
+the game to stay. But from the beginning to the end of the legislative
+session he was blocked in nearly every effort he made for clean, honest
+reform of old, corrupt and selfish party devices. In his soul he knew,
+and those who knew him knew, that he was heart and soul for the good of
+the people. The measures he wanted put into law had no possible
+self-seeking in them. He was clean and upright in every detail of his
+private and public life, yet he faced every day facts like these:
+
+The other paper in Milton contained columns of abuse, of
+misrepresentation and of downright charges of self-seeking against him.
+Man after man in the party that had asked him to run for Senator came to
+him to beg him to desist from his fight on corporations that broke the
+laws and charged the people prohibitive prices for the necessities of
+life. Party worshippers like the Hon. Mr. Maxwell besieged the committee
+room pleading for harmony, meaning by "harmony," a slavish compromise
+with the greed and influence of money and power that might help the
+party if they were let alone. Letters flooded him from all parts of the
+state begging him or threatening him to leave well alone. Some of the
+very men who had during the election campaign promised to stay with him
+and help push his bills, lied outright, broke their promises and called
+him a deserter and a party traitor. Old friends who had stood by him for
+years, left him and in some cases became his bitterest enemies. Bill
+after bill framed with only one great-hearted purpose to benefit all the
+people went through the grinding process of detraction, of
+vilification, of amendment and final defeat. A little handful of members
+rallied around him. But the greed forces of the entire state were on the
+other side. The selfish corporations, the highwaymen of commerce, the
+whiskey powers fighting for their lives to maintain the license system
+of the state, the gang of thugs that lived on the gambling house and the
+barter in human blood in the sale of virtue and the degradation of boys
+and girls, all fought him. The newspapers that print liquor and other
+questionable advertisements, the microscopic men who made a living by
+appointment to little political dirty jobs, the horde of hungry office
+seekers who didn't know "America" from the latest vaudeville rag-time,
+the plunderers of the treasury who live without any visible means of
+support except what they boldly stole from contracts on public works,
+the princely robbers who are the crowned heads of special privilege,
+whose wives and daughters figure in the society columns as leaders in
+those useful callings of bridge whist and select receptions, the great
+and ignorant mob of pygmies who never had the capacity for a political
+idea bigger than their own diminutive measurement, the newspaper and
+magazine hacks who live on abuse of everybody who has a high ideal, all
+joined in the whoop and chase after Douglas of the fourth district,
+branded him as a fakir, an idiot, a senseless dreamer, an egotist, a
+demagogue, a party traitor, a knocker, and every other objectionable
+kind of disturber of the peace, meaning by "peace," the peace of those
+who are let alone by reformers to rob the state, degrade politics,
+enthrone injustice, keep the party in power and reelect themselves.
+
+And this is the kind of thing the preacher urges his high-spirited young
+men to confront if they go into public careers. Do you think American
+politics could be made more attractive to the strong men of this nation
+if some of the abuse and personal sewer methods were eliminated? Do you
+think all this gutter spattering is necessary to reach conclusions and
+arrive at a final better condition for the nation's life? Do you think
+that even if discussion and defence of opinion are necessary in the
+settlement of great public affairs, it is also in order to question a
+man's purity of purpose, his patriotism and his personal devotion to a
+great ideal?
+
+Paul's whole nature was stirred by what he was going through and his
+absorption in the matters nearest his heart was so complete that it was
+with no ordinary shock he came to realise that his own son was in a
+critical condition. As a father he reproached himself for neglecting the
+boy under the plea of trying to reform the state. And when he began to
+question Louis that night he rapidly noted the lad's physical condition
+and took account of his manner which, the more he studied it, was not at
+all reassuring.
+
+"Tell me, now, Louis, what you want. Begin at the beginning and hide
+nothing."
+
+Louis looked sullenly at his father.
+
+"You haven't time to listen to me. You never have."
+
+"Yes, I have. I'll take it." Paul felt more self-reproach every minute
+he eyed Louis. And as he looked at him he could not help thinking of how
+much the boy resembled in many ways Esther's brother Louis, who used to
+give him such concern.
+
+"Well, father, I want to quit High School. I don't like it. I hate it."
+
+"Why? Tell me honestly now. I can't help you unless you give me the real
+facts."
+
+"I don't like the teachers. They nag me. I hate them."
+
+"Hate them? You mean all of your teachers?"
+
+"Well, most of them. They criticise me and make fun of me. Miss Barrows
+showed what I wrote about tuberculosis to every other teacher in the
+school."
+
+"Go on," said Paul, after a pause.
+
+"I can't get the English. I don't understand the long definitions. I am
+not cut out for a scholar."
+
+"Have you tried?"
+
+"Yes, I have. But the harder I try, the worse it is."
+
+"What lessons are you carrying?"
+
+"English, algebra, physics, manual training, German and chemistry."
+
+"Tell me now," said Paul good-naturedly, "which one of all these studies
+you hate the least."
+
+Louis laughed. "I don't like any studies."
+
+"But which one would you choose first if you couldn't help yourself?"
+
+"Manual training."
+
+"What do you do in that?"
+
+"Oh, I plane and saw and glue up boards and make things."
+
+"What things?"
+
+Louis hesitated. "You'll laugh."
+
+"No, I won't." Paul felt more like crying than laughing as Louis eyed
+him doubtfully.
+
+"Great God!" he felt like saying to himself. "Here I have been so busy
+with everybody else's affairs that my own son is afraid of me."
+
+"Well, I finished a writing desk the other day. I was going to give it
+to mother for her birthday. I brought it home last night."
+
+"A writing desk! Let me see it."
+
+"It's in my room," Louis said with some hesitation.
+
+"I want to see it," said Paul. He rose to go up stairs and had got as
+far as the hall when the telephone rang.
+
+"Go on. I'll come as soon as I answer this," Paul said, and Louis
+hurried up stairs as if he wanted to get there some time before his
+father.
+
+The man at the other end of the telephone wire was an angry committeeman
+at the State House.
+
+"I say," he exclaimed in a strident voice that clanged into the receiver
+like a personal insult. "When are you coming down? We've been waiting
+here over an hour."
+
+Paul made a lightning decision and answered. "I can't come down
+to-night. I have a very important engagement elsewhere."
+
+"Elsewhere!" snorted the irate committeeman. "Why, you made this a
+personal meeting. You've got to come down. I can't hold Rogers to our
+plan if you don't come. And Alvard is on the fence. We lack just enough
+to make a majority. This is your pet measure. Are you going back on it?"
+
+"I can't come down to-night. Put it through among you. If you really
+mean business you don't need me. Stand by the bill at all costs."
+
+The committeeman broke in with an oath: "All costs! It's your bill. If
+you desert it now at this pinch, it is down and out. I can't look after
+your fences."
+
+The receiver at the other end went up with a bang and Paul realised that
+another one of his cherished measures had received its _coup de grace_.
+Partly, he said to himself as he started up to Louis's room, on account
+of the half hearted action of those who called themselves friends. What
+friends! Rabbits! Cowards! Self seekers! Real friends could have managed
+that bill without his presence and there was a show for it owing to its
+popular character, if anyone would push matters with energy and
+intelligent enthusiasm. "But was it his duty always to neglect his own
+children even for service to the state?" He said "No" as he went along
+up and into Louis's room.
+
+He had seldom been into the boy's sanctum, and as he came in now he was
+curious, and interested in what he saw. Louis had employed the interval
+of his father's presence to pick a number of things up off the floor and
+what he did not have time to throw on top of the bed he had kicked under
+it, so the room presented a fairly respectable outward appearance.
+
+He had pulled the writing desk out into the middle of the room and as
+his father stopped in front of it he said suddenly: "There it is, now
+laugh."
+
+Paul was simply astonished when he examined the article. To be sure, all
+the joints on it were not perfect by any means and one of the legs
+looked a little out of plumb. But as a whole the writing desk was so
+creditable a piece of work that he could not help saying, "I call that
+pretty fine. Mother will be tremendously pleased. You made it all
+yourself?"
+
+"Yes, all but this little bit of carving. That Johnson started me on.
+The rest of it is mine."
+
+"It's mighty good," said Paul, walking around it. "Straighten that leg
+out by amputating it just below the knee and it will------"
+
+"Yes, I knew you would laugh at me. All the teachers do," wailed Louis.
+
+"No, I'm not laughing at you, Louis. You have done splendid work. But
+you mustn't feel badly to have your faults pointed out. That is the way
+to learn. If you hadn't been in quite such a hurry you would have made a
+better job, wouldn't you? Your fault, one of your faults, is lack of
+patience and thorough painstaking over details. Isn't that so?"
+
+"It must be. All my teachers say so all the time."
+
+"Well, if they say so all the time there must be some reason for it. But
+honest, now, the writing desk is not a bad piece of work viewed as a
+whole."
+
+Louis felt somewhat mollified and after his father had made one or two
+more comments they started down stairs. When they reached the hall, the
+telephone rang again.
+
+"Go into the library and wait for me," Paul said as he went to the
+instrument.
+
+This time it was Rogers, the doubtful member of the committee. He wanted
+to ask one or two questions about the bill and Paul quickly and eagerly
+answered him.
+
+"But we need you right here now. We can't do anything without you. Burke
+is mad and we can't depend on him. You've just got to come if you want
+to see the thing through."
+
+"I can't come, Rogers. You can whip them into line." Paul rapidly shot
+directions at him. "Stand by the thing for my sake if not for the sake
+of the bill. Don't go back on your promise."
+
+"Promise! What's become of yours? The thing is impossible without you. I
+can't do anything with Burke and the rest of the committee are hot over
+your absence. Don't blame anyone but yourself when you read the morning
+paper."
+
+Paul started to answer, but the committeeman had finished, and after
+hesitating over the matter he went into the library and resumed his
+questions with Louis.
+
+"After the manual training, which one of your studies do you take to
+most?"
+
+"Oh, I don't like any of them. Chemistry, I guess."
+
+"Do you like mathematics?"
+
+"I don't mind, but I want to go into business, father. I want to quit
+school altogether and go into business."
+
+"What business?"
+
+"Any kind. I want to make money."
+
+"What do you want to make money for?"
+
+"What does any one want money for? I want to buy----"
+
+"Go on. Tell me exactly."
+
+"Well, clothes and--and--I want things, so I can go out and be with
+other fellows, and have something to spend--and------"
+
+In his burst of unconcealed eagerness to get out of school Louis was
+really revealing to his father some of the actual reasons for wanting to
+give up his studies, and as Paul listened to him he felt that the boy's
+eagerness went even farther. He determined to be very frank with him and
+get at the bottom of the thing if possible.
+
+"Do you want to make money so as to go with the girls and get popular
+with them and spend money on them?"
+
+The question was almost brutal in its directness, and one that his
+father had never before suggested. Louis reddened with an angry but
+self-conscious manner that told Paul he had not guessed very wide of the
+real motive that was urging the boy.
+
+He did not answer the question but sat sullenly tearing bits of paper
+from the leaves of a magazine on the table. And his father sat silently
+staring at him, wondering how he was going to manage Louis and help him
+to make a possible manhood for himself. The problem across the library
+table in this boy of his was even a greater problem than the one down at
+the State House. He could afford politically to lose the bill. But could
+he afford parentally to lose the boy?
+
+"You needn't answer my question, Louis, you have answered it. Now listen
+to me. I am your father and next to your mother I love you more than
+anyone else in all the world. Do you believe that?"
+
+"I suppose so," Louis managed to say.
+
+"You know it, Louis. There is no guess work. You are sixteen. You have
+fairly good health and more than average brains. The main business in
+your life for the next ten years ought to be study and education. The
+girls--society--all that--do you want to make a fool of yourself and
+miss the one thing of manhood that's worth getting? If you do, I don't
+for you. I am several years older than you are, Louis. And I am your
+father for the purpose, as I believe, of really being worth something to
+you in the matter of counsel and direction for your voyage over life's
+great ocean. If you are planning to start out without a compass or the
+right kind of equipment I would be worse than a fool if I didn't prevent
+such a voyage, wouldn't I? Well, I don't intend to let you do just as
+you please just because for the time being you choose to go your own
+gait. Mind, Louis, I am not going to ask you to do impossible things or
+be tyrannical with you. But neither do I intend that you should throw
+away a splendid chance for education just to gratify a present longing
+to make money for the purpose you want it for."
+
+The telephone rang again at this point and Paul went over to it.
+
+Burke had come to the instrument again.
+
+"We can't agree on the bill in its present shape and it's simply
+impossible to put it through in your absence. You are being judged by
+all the committees and some of them don't hesitate to say you are being
+bought out. If you come down now you may be able to save it. But we are
+on the point of kicking the bill out or reporting adversely. Can't you
+come down within an hour?"
+
+"I can't promise. I have a very important engagement here. I might be
+able to get down by midnight, but wouldn't promise."
+
+"Midnight! The members are dead tired now. Rogers is asleep in his chair
+and Colfax is dozing on the lounge. If you don't come within an hour you
+needn't come at all."
+
+"I can't come within an hour."
+
+"What is it? A matter of life and death?"
+
+"Yes, a matter of life and death," Paul answered slowly.
+
+"Oh, very well. Then the old bill is dead, that's all. It's not a matter
+of question."
+
+And Paul could picture Burke as with an incredulous sneer he hung up,
+and told the committee to clear out and go to bed.
+
+He went back into the library and sat down by Louis and put his arm
+around his shoulder and reasoned with him as he had never in all the
+campaign reasoned with a political acquaintance for the purpose of
+winning his friendship. He showed the boy clearly what it meant to lose
+an education, what a handicap it would be to him all his life if he did
+not have the schooling and culture that history and language and science
+stood ready to give. He pictured to Louis the tremendous advantages that
+go with education in the social life of the world and cited numerous
+instances in the range of his own experience to show Louis what a prize
+he was throwing away at the age of sixteen if he deliberately threw away
+the riches of mental power for the dirt of lust and mammon. He got hold
+of Louis as he never had before, because he divined the really impure
+and foolish motive the boy had for going into business, and as the
+minutes ticked into hours Louis gradually became convinced of certain
+things which he had only vaguely entertained so far.
+
+In the first place he began to have a feeling that his father did care
+for him tremendously after all. Paul's absorption in politics for the
+last year had been so deep that, as has been said, he had neglected the
+boy's interests and had not paid attention to his frequent complaints
+and appeals. But now that the matter was squarely met, Louis knew from
+what he caught of the telephone dialogue that his father was neglecting
+a very important political affair to spend the entire evening with him.
+The thought added to the feeling he began to have of his father's real
+character. Then Louis had all his life had the greatest respect for his
+father's intellectual life and regarded it with admiration. He was fond
+of quoting him and there was no one in Milton who read Douglas's
+editorials more regularly and carefully than Louis.
+
+And added to all the rest that influenced him that night was the shame
+he began to feel that his father knew his real motive for wanting to
+leave the school and make money. He had become fascinated and led away
+by a certain set in the High School and he wanted to go with them, wear
+expensive clothes, frequent society functions and spend freely and get
+the reputation of a generous and even lavish giver. This he could not do
+with the allowance his father gave him, and he chafed under it
+foolishly. He had not supposed his father would detect his underlying
+motive in his longing to quit school and go into business. Now that he
+realised his father did understand he felt ashamed to continue his plea
+as he had first made it. At the end of the evening together, a certain
+definite agreement was reached between father and son.
+
+Louis agreed to continue his studies for another year and do his best
+with those branches he found most difficult where he was not allowed to
+choose electives. His father agreed to study with him in a regular
+course, helping him through hard places, practically being his tutor and
+agreeing to give him all the time he needed in the evening. "And why
+not?" Paul kept asking almost with a sob as he noted the glow that was
+creeping back into Louis's eye, the glow of a new interest in study.
+"Why not? What shall it profit the reformer if he reforms the whole
+state and loses his own children? I don't believe that even high-flown
+Patriotism requires such a sacrifice as that."
+
+When Louis went up to bed tears were on his cheeks and a choking in his
+breast. His father had simply said, "My boy, I want you to be a man.
+Your mother and I have prayed for you all these years. We believe you
+will not disappoint us. Don't forget God, Louis. You need to pray to
+overcome this great temptation of impure thinking. The gates of Hell are
+close by that sort of life. Not even your father and mother can spare
+you from ruin that way. You have got to fight it out yourself. God
+helping you."
+
+Paul looked up at the clock and saw it was after midnight, but on a
+venture he called up the committee room at the State House. A night
+janitor answered and informed him that the committee had been gone for
+over an hour.
+
+He went upstairs and found Esther in her sewing room, her face pale and
+troubled, traces of tears on her cheeks and such a look of real fear on
+her face that Paul exclaimed, "Esther! What is it?"
+
+She turned to her table and picked up a package of postcards and with a
+shudder of loathing held them out to Paul.
+
+He took them and saw at a second's glance that they were the vulgar,
+coarse, suggestive and even indecent photographic postcards which this
+great civilised, supposedly Christian, government even yet allows to
+pass through the post office and be displayed and sold at every news
+stand and book store in the country.
+
+"They dropped out of Louis's coat when I began to mend it this evening.
+And there was worse. He or some other boy had written this vile thing."
+Esther handed it to Paul what she had found. Paul read it and his face
+grew white and stern. Esther sat down and put her head on her arms and
+almost shrieked.
+
+"Oh, I can't bear it! Louis! Louis! How could you! Oh, how can his soul
+ever be clean again! Oh, boy, your mother's heart is broken! After all
+my prayers for you! After all the days and nights of consecration! Oh,
+my son, my son! Would God I had died before I knew or saw this! Oh, my
+Master, the cup is too bitter! I can't drink it!"
+
+Never in all his knowledge of Esther had Paul ever seen her like this.
+His own heart almost stopped at the sight. For years she had been so
+uniformly calm and strong even when her children had disappointed her.
+She had with high-spirited motherhood faced their sins and wrong-doing
+with a peaceful faith that they would do right in the end. But this
+discovery seemed to smite her soul down into a hopeless darkness, where
+there was no redemption. And as Paul looked at her there was in his soul
+more anguish for her than fear for Louis over what she had discovered.
+In a sense he was prepared for this, somewhat, because of the glimpses
+he had been getting that very evening of Louis's nature and its
+temptations.
+
+He kneeled by his wife and put his arm about her.
+
+"This is too great for you to bear alone. Besides, it may not be as
+hopeless or as terrible as you think. Let me see Louis. I have just been
+having an evening with him. If he hasn't gone to bed I believe now is
+the time for me to see him."
+
+Esther had grown quiet. She seemed to be praying. Paul got up and went
+out of the room along the hallway to Louis's room and knocked. At
+Louis's answer he went in and found him at work on the writing desk.
+
+Without any preliminary Paul held out the cards to Louis and said,
+"Louis, are these yours?"
+
+Louis' face blanched on the instant. His hand trembled so he could not
+hold the cards still. He tried to answer but his tongue seemed
+paralysed. His father repeated the question more sternly. Louis broke
+down completely, flung himself on the bed in a spasm of fear and shame.
+
+His father eyed him with conflicting feelings. Again he was strongly
+reminded of Louis Darcy and his many experiences with him. Louis still
+refused to answer, and Paul said:
+
+"Look up here, Louis. Look up and answer me. Did you write that?"
+
+His father thrust the paper his mother had found close up to the boy.
+Louis cried out. "No, no, father. That is not mine. One of the
+boys------"
+
+Paul felt relieved as far as that went, for Louis had never lied to him.
+
+"But these cards. Are these yours?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How long have you had them?"
+
+"I got them yesterday."
+
+"Give them to me." Louis handed them over and Paul tore them across
+again and again and flung the pieces into the waste paper basket. Louis
+had never seen his father angry like that before. He shrank and cowered
+back while his father said:
+
+"Louis, I would almost rather see you in your coffin than with those
+vile things in your hands and their foul imaginings in your heart. Do
+you realise what this will lead to? Your manhood will be blasted! your
+soul blackened! your body tortured! all the angel in you turned into
+animal------"
+
+Paul nearly broke down himself. He shuddered and for one instant Louis
+really caught a glimpse into the horror that sin causes.
+
+But Paul Douglas was not a cowardly father nor one who is content to
+leave it to boys to learn unaided bitter lessons from evil. He sat down
+by Louis and gave him the plainest talk on the subject of personal
+purity the boy had ever had. And the effect on him in all his after life
+was even more than either Paul or Esther had dared to hope. Paul never
+did a better hour's work. When he was through, Louis was completely
+broken. In the moment of his cry to his father for help, Paul kneeled by
+him, put his arm around him and prayed for him such a prayer of appeal
+and hope and good cheer that Louis Douglas will never forget. The whole
+thing was the beginning of a new manhood for the boy. And when the next
+day he plucked up courage to confess to his mother, one of the hardest
+things he ever did in all his life, the entire unfolding of his mother's
+love, her passionate appeal to his better nature, her cry to him to seek
+God's help in overcoming all, overwhelmed him. Again the boy caught a
+glimpse of the mightiness of father and mother affection and young as he
+was he came from that soul yearning of Esther with a manly determination
+in his boyish heart not to disappoint either father or mother in the
+struggle he would make to be true to the high calling. For as the time
+slipped away many and many a time he was reminded of the black pit on
+the edge of which he had almost slipped, to fall into its slimy and
+murky abyss, and perhaps never again come up into the pure sweet air of
+God under his blue sky and its silver stars. O Louis, you will never be
+able to measure the rescue your father and mother made for you at that
+crisis when your soul was wandering over the treeless moor of passion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+FELIX BAUER sat at his bench in the electrical machine shop at Burrton
+just about to open a letter which had been left there late in the
+afternoon. The shop men sometimes brought one another's mail up from the
+village and Bauer, who often worked at his task without going out to
+tea, was glad to get his occasional letters before he finished his bench
+work late into the night.
+
+Bauer's mail was not very frequent nor very heavy. After that vacation
+at the Douglas home, he had come back to Burrton and plunged into the
+work in a vain endeavour to forget Helen Douglas. He did not forget her
+in the least and did not try to pretend that he ever could. He had never
+ventured to ask if he might write to her, but Mrs. Douglas had dropped a
+friendly note now and then for which he was grateful and Paul had sent
+him a copy of Heine, which Bauer had admired on the library shelves at
+Milton.
+
+The only additional letters he received were those which belonged to his
+correspondence with the people in Washington who were interested in his
+electrical patent. The circular glass incubator was finally completed,
+and Bauer had experimented on it to such satisfaction that it was a
+common joke with the boy that Bauer's electrical chickens were so thick
+they ate up all the currents in the shop.
+
+Bauer could afford to take all the criticism, even the caustic remarks
+of Anderson the foreman, because it began to look now very much as if
+the stubborn, dogged, plodding German were on the road to financial
+success. He had been through the regular struggles necessary to make his
+model and get his patent. But he had finally succeeded in all the
+preliminary stages, his model was in the patent office, and he had even
+begun to receive letters from two or three manufacturing firms about
+putting the incubator on the market.
+
+He was totally inexperienced in this business and needed much counsel
+from older heads. Anderson the foreman finally saw that Bauer had really
+invented a very valuable article and he came to his assistance in the
+final correspondence over the patent, but Bauer had some reluctance
+about sharing with him the correspondence over the actual manufacture
+and sale of the incubators, because of Anderson's unfortunate habit of
+antagonising the shop men in various matters. He had never been able to
+overcome a general distrust on the part of the students, and Bauer
+shared that distrust so keenly that he did not feel willing to risk any
+great amount of confidence in him.
+
+Since his return from Milton, Bauer had brooded over money matters. A
+small inheritance from his grandfather's estate in Lausbrachen had
+helped him through school, and his living wants were so few that he had
+not suffered any from privations which most of the rich men's sons at
+Burrton would have considered absolutely impossible.
+
+But a new and unknown ambition had invaded Bauer's hitherto placid and
+somewhat passive soul since Helen Douglas had come into his circle of
+interest. What was it the girl had said during that talk in the library
+that day when she had made a vow not to speak first and had broken it?
+Bauer remembered every phase of that incident; the girl's real sparkle
+of interest in his invention; her eager questions; her coming up to the
+library table and bending over Bauer's plan; her head so close to his
+that a stray curl of her hair had almost touched his cheek; her startled
+drawing back at Bauer's solemn remark about the eggs having to be good
+before they could hatch; her frank but entirely innocent questioning of
+him about his home life, and how she unknowingly hurt him; her swift
+realisation of something wrong and her tactful change of conversation;
+and then her remark about the power of money when she had asked Bauer
+about the possibility of his becoming rich. The girl's enthusiasm, her
+perfect physical animal health, her smile, her unquestioned interest in
+his work, her ingenuous and pure joy in life,--all affected poor Bauer
+so deeply that he felt as if he were walking through an apple orchard in
+full bloom, his feet pressing through fragrant red clover, and the apple
+blossom petals floating down gently, caressing his face and hands, the
+sky a robin egg blue and the air elixir of heaven--and then, he was
+suddenly recalled to the plain, dusty, weed-bordered road he was
+actually travelling, he, Felix Bauer, German, poor, homely, with a
+dishonoured family history, with no prospects worth considering and no
+future worth dreaming over. And the road became very dusty, and the
+weeds very coarse, and the sky very grey and the air very heavy for
+Bauer, as Helen went out of the library and left him there staring
+intently at the place where she had been and recalling what she had said
+about money.
+
+After all, money was the great power of the world. It could buy
+anything, even a wife, even in these modern times. But could it buy
+love? Had it ever bought so divine a thing as that since the foundation
+of the world?
+
+Bauer's question did not go much farther. Somehow he shrank from trying
+to answer it. But he brooded over the utter hopelessness of his thought
+of Helen as he stood, penniless and obscure, and dishonoured, as he
+believed, through the sin of his parents. And as his patent grew under
+his hands and the possibility of his really making money from it became
+more possible, he found himself growing possessed with the "auri fames"
+and nourishing it as if it were the one indispensable factor in his
+final possession of the one being in the whole world worth living for.
+He believed he could never win such a life without money. There might be
+some hope for him or any man with it.
+
+The letter which he was about to open bore the Washington postmark and
+he took for granted it was from someone interested in the purchase of
+his patent rights. He opened it in his usual slow deliberate manner, but
+the moment he began to read his whole manner changed. It was as if one
+had opened a cage door to take a pet bird in his hand suddenly to find
+his fingers in contact with a snake.
+
+He rose from his bench so abruptly that his chair fell over, and he
+threw the letter down, eyeing it as if it were alive and dangerous to
+the touch. Then after a few seconds he picked up the letter and yielding
+to a very unusual passion tore the paper clear across, and threw the two
+pieces down on the bench. Then he seemed to be aware of yielding to an
+unusual outburst and picking up his chair he sat down.
+
+There were only a few students in the shop. Walter had gone out an hour
+before. It was almost seven o'clock and the foreman was just going out
+of his little office room at the other end of Bauer's section of
+benches.
+
+Bauer sat there until the foreman had gone out and then he picked up the
+two pieces of the letter and with a flush of colour on his face as
+unusual as his recent outburst of feeling, he slowly read. The
+handwriting was very peculiar even for German script and the tearing of
+the letter in two made its intelligent perusal doubly difficult.
+
+When he reached the end he hesitated and at last put the two pieces of
+the letter into its envelope and the envelope in his pocket and then he
+sat staring at the stuff on his bench with a hard look in which scorn
+and shame and perplexity were mingled. He sat there until he was all
+alone. Then he got up and tried to go on with his work. He was on the
+track of another invention,--a spring coil to prevent the jar to a
+tungsten lamp. But after picking up a tool and making one or two efforts
+to continue his task, he threw his material down on the bench and after
+a moment of indecision closed up the locker, put on his coat and went
+out.
+
+He and Walter had rooms opposite each other in the same hall. As he went
+up to the landing he stopped at Walter's door and finding it open, went
+in. Walter was writing to his father. Bauer waited until he was through
+and then in his usual direct simple manner said:
+
+"Walter, I want your advice. I'm in a hard place and I don't know just
+what I ought to do."
+
+"All right. Fire away," said Walter frankly. The friendship of the two
+was now on a perfect basis and Bauer had lost all reserve although he
+had never up to this time taken Walter into complete confidence in his
+family matters, partly owing to an honest feeling of independence and a
+courageous reluctance to burden Walter with it.
+
+"I want to read you a letter from my father," said Bauer, eyeing Walter
+wistfully.
+
+Walter nodded, and Bauer took out the letter and read in his slow almost
+stammering fashion.
+
+                                "Washington, D. C.,
+                                "October 5, 1909.
+
+"Son Felix.
+
+"Undoubtedly this letter will cause you surprise. It is only after much
+painful contemplation of all the facts that I venture to send you this
+communication. It is not an easy matter for myself after the experiences
+through which I have passed to approach you with a proposition which may
+seem altogether impossible to you. Before you judge me, hear me.
+Whatever may have been the mistakes I have made you have never been
+involved in them in any way, and I am writing you now to assure you of
+my real affection for you and to hasten to dispel any ill will you may
+have for me on account of the deep shadow which has fallen on my life.
+
+"I am living here in Washington and have opened a law office on H
+street. A few days ago I had occasion to go to the patent office and
+there I saw your model of the electric incubator. There were two men
+standing there looking at the model and I overheard one of them saying,
+'That thing is good for a fortune to someone.' I learned by inquiry that
+the speaker was Halstead of the manufacturing firm of Halstead, Burns &
+Co. He does not know me, and I am sure he did not see me or notice me
+while he was in the patent office.
+
+"Now what I am writing you for is simply this. If you will put the
+business of this patent into my hands, I am confident I can manage it
+for you to your satisfaction. I am confident you have made a very
+valuable invention and it ought to bring you a good sum of money. I am
+willing to do all the work of negotiating between you and the parties
+interested and charge you only a fair price for my services. As you
+know, I have had some experience in business affairs and I am not
+without ability. There will be two offers made you no doubt, one to buy
+your patent outright, and the other to contract for a share of the
+manufactured sales. In the first case a lump sum would be offered. In
+the other you would be obliged to wait a long time for any returns. I
+would be inclined to favour the sale of the patent rights and hold to a
+stiff price. But that is a matter for deliberation. You may not agree
+with me. However, very much would depend on the amount the patent right
+could bring. If this man Halstead, who is one of the largest
+manufacturers in the east, is right in his judgment it is possible the
+sum he will offer you would decide the matter for you and give you a sum
+of ready money which I have no doubt you could well use in your
+education.
+
+"I do not offer any apologies for this missive as I do not consider that
+it calls for any. My offer is purely a business one and I make it partly
+on my own account as well as yours. If the patent turns out a success we
+would both benefit by it. I am confident, as I say, that I can serve
+your interests better than any mere stranger. I am here on the ground, I
+am familiar with the patent laws and I believe I can make good terms
+with a man like Halstead. If you decide to accept my offer, write me at
+once, giving me authority to act for you. The sooner the better, for I
+believe Halstead is going to make you an offer if he has not already
+done so. But he does not know that anyone knows what he really thinks of
+the value of your work and he will do what they all do, try to get your
+patent for the lowest possible figure.
+
+"My address is 427 H Street East.
+
+                                "ADOLPH BAUER."
+
+When Felix had finished reading, there was a moment of silence. Then
+Walter said, to give Bauer time to let him into his confidence if he
+chose:
+
+"Has this man Halstead corresponded with you yet?"
+
+"No, I have had no letters from him."
+
+"You probably will hear from him soon, then?"
+
+"Why, yes, if what he says is true?"
+
+Bauer all through this talk with Walter never mentioned his father's
+name directly but spoke of him using the personal pronoun.
+
+"What do you suppose the patent is worth?"
+
+"I have no imagination about it. But say, Walter, what do you think I
+ought to do about this letter?"
+
+"I don't know. You have never told me----" Walter began slowly.
+
+"I know, of course you can't advise me unless I tell you more. He--well,
+he deserted mother. She was involved in some similar disgrace. From all
+I could learn while in Washington that time I went, he turned over all
+his property to her. That was the only redeeming thing abut the wretched
+business. But at any rate he has been obliged to go back to his old law
+business. He is very capable. Brilliant. My mother--I can't talk of
+her."
+
+Poor Bauer put his face in his hands. Walter was silent. What could
+anyone say?
+
+After a little, Walter said gently, "Why do you hesitate about accepting
+your father's offer?"
+
+"I don't wish to be under any obligations to him."
+
+"But he makes you a purely business proposition. Can't you trust him to
+handle it?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose so, I never knew of his being dishonest. And you know the
+old proverb: 'Wer lugt, der stiehlt auch'; 'show me a liar and I'll show
+you a thief.' His faults were always of a different sort. But you can
+see how I would naturally hesitate to correspond with him or have any
+dealings with him."
+
+"I think you are wrong about that," said Walter positively. "This is a
+purely business affair. You ought to treat it as such. He can handle the
+matter for you, being on the ground, far better than you can do it
+through correspondence at this distance."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"I know it. If I were in your place I wouldn't hesitate a minute. You
+are totally at the mercy of the manufacturers unless you can make them
+understand your ability to take care of yourself. Isn't it true that the
+great majority of inventors die poor? The manufacturers make the money,
+not the inventors."
+
+"That's true. But I don't want to die poor. I won't die poor. I have not
+the ambition of a Carnegie or a Rockefeller."
+
+"You need a good friend at Washington to protect your interests. My!
+Won't it be great if your incubator should make you rich! I don't know
+why it shouldn't. The way the chickens hatched out of it was wonderful.
+Just think, old man. Most everyone nowadays has electricity in his
+house. Thousands of people could just as well as not be raising chickens
+on the side. Ministers, doctors, college professors, newspaper men,
+lawyers, school teachers,--no end. The sun would never set on your
+incubator any more than hens have to. I tell you, old man, there's money
+in your electric birds if you manage the business end of this thing
+right. And I don't see why your father's offer isn't just--well,
+providential."
+
+"I never knew anything about him to be 'providential,'" said Bauer in
+almost the only bitter tone Walter had ever known him to use. "But I
+don't want to take any chances on this. Perhaps he is sent along at this
+time to help me out."
+
+Walter looked curiously at his friend.
+
+"You seem to be awfully anxious to make money, Felix. Never knew you
+that way before. What you going to do? Get married? And start a chicken
+ranch?"
+
+Over Bauer's face a great flood of colour swept. There was one
+confidence he had determined never to make to Walter, and that was his
+feelings towards Helen. He believed Walter had no hint of it. And as a
+matter of fact that was true. Walter had so far had no love experiences
+and Bauer had never by so much as a look or a word in Walter's presence
+betrayed his secret.
+
+"I don't expect to get married. At least not very soon," Bauer managed
+to say. "But I want money. You can borrow of me," he added with one of
+his rare smiles, "if you need it for your own nuptials."
+
+"No immediate need," said Walter, laughing. "I have never seen the girl
+my mother would like to welcome."
+
+"Ah! Your mother. But she would be kind to the girl you would choose."
+
+"Or the one that would choose me, you mean. I don't know. Mother would
+be pretty particular about the people that got into the Douglas family.
+Did I ever mention old man Damon who came around courting Helen last
+winter. He wears a wig and deals in rubber goods. Old enough to be
+Helen's father. I never saw mother so upset. And as for Helen--why--I
+would as soon think of her taking you for a suitor as Damon. But you
+never can tell what a girl will do. They generally do the opposite of
+what you expect."
+
+Bauer managed to say--"That's fortunate for some of us perhaps. Else
+there might be no hope for unfortunate and homely people if there was
+any fixed rules by which girls acted."
+
+Walter stared at Bauer as he sometimes had to when Bauer opened his
+philosophy unexpectedly.
+
+"I wonder what will happen to you, old man, when you fall in love,
+really and deeply?"
+
+"I wonder," said Bauer softly.
+
+"It will be interesting to watch you," said Walter laughing.
+
+"Same to you," said Bauer with some spirit.
+
+"We can watch each other," Walter continued.
+
+"I have no doubt you will bear watching," was Bauer's reply, wrung from
+him by the tense situation.
+
+Walter roared, and did not venture to say any more on that subject. But
+he went on to urge Bauer to answer his father's letter at once and give
+him power of attorney to act for him and make the best possible terms
+for his invention. Bauer promised before he left the room to do so, and
+on reaching his own room he at once set to work on the difficult
+business of answering his father on purely business grounds. Without
+making any definite promises or giving his father any authority to act
+for him, with characteristic caution he asked several questions about
+the patent laws, and especially about the possibility of undertaking the
+manufacture of the incubators on shares. He enclosed the letters he
+already had received from companies interested, none of which however
+had made him any positive offer, only sounding him in general as to his
+disposition to sell the patent rights on certain terms which had no very
+promising prospects of ready money. And it was money Bauer wanted,--not
+dim future prospects of the all-powerful medium of happiness or
+unhappiness.
+
+After his letter had been mailed, he felt a little uncertain about it
+all, but he was of a direct, straight-forward habit and once started in
+a course of action he seldom changed it. Once committed to the
+correspondence with his father he would hold to it, keeping it all on a
+cold business basis as if his father had no other relation to him, and
+letting the heartache take care of itself. It is astonishing how many
+heartaches do take care of themselves in this old world. Only, like
+Bauer's, they are apt to take care of themselves so poorly that the ache
+starves the heart out of house and home.
+
+Two days later, Walter, who was in his room going over some complicated
+formulae connected with Rausch's Dynamics, was interrupted by Bauer who
+came running in from his room across the hall waving a little slip of
+paper.
+
+"What do you think of that," he exclaimed with unusual excitement.
+
+Walter looked at the little yellow slip and read "One Thousand Dollars
+payable to Felix Bauer by Halstead, Burns & Co., of Washington."
+
+"They offer me that for my patent right, with a small percentage of
+profit on certain sales."
+
+Walter was excited in his turn and started to offer congratulations. But
+Bauer's next words broke in on him.
+
+"I'm going to send the check back. It's not enough and they know it."
+
+"I believe you're right," said Walter, after a stare at Bauer in this
+new light of money hunger. "The fact that they sent a check shows their
+eagerness to get into the business and their faith in its value. What
+will you hold them up to?"
+
+"I don't know. But I am going to put the matter up to--to him."
+
+"You mean your father?"
+
+"Yes," said Bauer hastily. "The more I think of it the more I believe he
+can get more than I can. I'll mail him Halstead's correspondence."
+
+That same afternoon Bauer returned the check to Halstead, Burns, & Co.
+with a brief business note saying that he was not prepared to sell out
+at such a small figure. He added that he had placed the business
+connected with the patent in the hands of his father, giving street
+number and office. In the same mail he sent his father Halstead's letter
+and told of his return of the check, at the same time authorising his
+father to have full power to act for him with Halstead or any other
+firm.
+
+"I do not know just what I ought to receive for my patent." Bauer wrote.
+"But I am not going to act hastily nor sell at a sacrifice. I trust you
+to make terms that will at least be some measure of the real value of
+the article."
+
+A week passed by during which time Bauer's father wrote acknowledging
+Bauer's letters, thanking him for accepting his offer, commending his
+action in returning the check to Halstead, Burns & Co., and assuring
+Felix that the business would receive prompt and careful attention.
+
+A week later as Walter and Bauer were in the shop a telegraph messenger
+came in with an envelope for Felix Bauer.
+
+Bauer opened and read and without a word passed the message over to
+Walter. It read, "Halstead offers $5,000 cash down and percentage on
+American sales. Shall I close with offer? Adolph Bauer."
+
+Walter could hardly speak--he was so excited.
+
+"Better close with it. You can't do better. That father of yours must be
+a------"
+
+Bauer smiled faintly. "Perhaps I can't expect more. I believe I will
+wire accept."
+
+"Better find out what the percentage is, and why European sales are not
+included."
+
+"Yes," said Bauer briefly. He was strangely calm and not particularly
+overjoyed by his unexpected good fortune. Walter recalled that
+afterwards.
+
+He answered the telegram with a letter, asking for details which his
+father furnished promptly. The European sales were subject to such
+expense and delay that the manufacturers explained the unusual risk and
+made a plausible showing why royalty terms were difficult to arrange.
+After two weeks correspondence, Bauer finally telegraphed his father--
+"You are authorised to close with Halstead on their terms. Take your
+commission out of the $5,000."
+
+By the business arrangements made between them Bauer's father was to
+receive five per cent on any cash offer. Bauer felt kindly towards him
+for the way the affair had come out and in a letter written the same day
+he sent the telegram he authorised his father to take out ten per cent
+commission instead of the five agreed upon in their formal contract.
+
+"I don't want to get too money mad," he said to himself with a grim
+smile as he posted the letter, and with a great feeling of weariness
+upon him went into the shop.
+
+Felix Bauer was one of the few students at Burrton who never subscribed
+to a daily paper and seldom read one. He kept up with the news of the
+world by dropping into Walter's room and hearing him dribble out the
+events of the day from a New York daily which Walter took. The edition
+reached Burrton eight hours after the date line.
+
+Three days after Bauer had authorised his father to close the contract
+on the patent for him Walter opened up his New York Daily for his usual
+skim over its contents. It was two o'clock. He had heard Bauer come up
+the stairs and go into his room and had not heard him go out.
+
+He glanced down over the usual political and sporting news and then his
+eye caught a headline that made him start.
+
+"LEAVES ON THE KAISER WILHELM UNDER SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES."
+
+"Adolph Bauer, ex-attache of the Consular service, sailed yesterday on
+the Kaiser Wilhelm for Bremen. Bauer will be remembered as the brilliant
+but shady member of the Washington coterie of unsavory reputation in
+connection with the Jaynes-Buford scandal. Before sailing, Bauer cashed
+a check for $5,000 on Halstead, Burns & Co., payment it is said on a
+patent right owned by himself and son for a new invention in the
+incubator line. The son is a student at Burrton Electrical School. There
+is no charge of crookedness at the bank. The check had the regular
+endorsement of Halstead. But parties who are interested in Bauer's
+movements socially, have taken steps to track him to Europe. Interesting
+developments are promised by those who know Bauer's antecedents and
+especially his treatment of his wife from whom he is separated pending a
+divorce."
+
+Walter was tremendously downcast by this bit of news.
+
+"Poor Bauer! Poor old man!" he said over and over. "What an unmitigated
+rascal that father of his must be to steal that money. Bauer will never
+get a cent. And I advised him to take up with his precious father's
+offer! But how could I foresee a thing as black as this. Oh, I don't
+know what I ought to do! How can I tell him! I can't do it! But he will
+find it out in a day or two! It can't be kept. Blame it! Why are there
+such things in the old world! And Bauer has been so eager to get money
+lately. Oh, I can't tell him! I just can't."
+
+Walter paced his room in great agitation. He dreaded to see Bauer. How
+could he break this to him? He dreaded to see his friend come out of the
+room. And he waited. But after an hour, Bauer had made no move and
+Walter, recalling his strength of character and mindful that the news
+would have to come to him some time, finally shook himself together,
+went out, crossed the hall and knocked on Bauer's door.
+
+The knock was a faint one and there was no reply. He knocked again a
+little louder, and getting no answer, he did what he often did, opened
+and went in.
+
+Bauer was standing over by his washbowl, leaning over and as he raised
+his head and turned around, Walter was startled at the look that greeted
+him.
+
+"What!" He took a stride over to his friend and put one hand on his
+shoulder. In the other hand he held the New York paper.
+
+Bauer smiled back at him.
+
+"I was going to tell you. It's too much bother to hide it. But this
+hemorrhage is worse than the others. I've been to see the doctor and he
+says I'll come out all right if I can get into the painted desert and
+stay there a year or two."
+
+Walter stared at Bauer without a word.
+
+The paper slipped out of his fingers, and he was hardly conscious of the
+fact that Bauer had stepped on it as he had walked over to his couch to
+lie down there.
+
+"You see," he said, lying on his back, looking up at Walter and speaking
+in his usual slow fashion, "I've only had the flow three times. First
+time I never minded it. Next one took me three weeks ago while you were
+gone to the Harrisburg Exhibition. The doctor says I will come out all
+right if I go out there. My money will come in a day or two and I'll
+start for Canyon Diablo. I ought to have a pretty good time on $4,500.
+Living is cheap in the painted desert. And any way, 'Wir mussen alie
+einmal sterben?' 'We must all die sometime,' you know."
+
+Walter's eyes travelled from Bauer's face to the newspaper on the floor
+and back again. And Bauer mistaking his look said, "Don't take it so
+hard. It might be worse. Money salves the wound you know. Perhaps you
+can go out with me for a few weeks. Can you? Of course I'll foot all the
+bills if you'll go." And he smiled at Walter as he spoke.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WALTER was trembling with sympathy and the sudden shock from the
+unexpected revelation of Bauer's physical condition. He was so
+overwhelmed with this that the loss of the money seemed comparatively
+trivial.
+
+"Why did you not tell me the condition you were in? I ought to have
+known about it. It does not seem possible."
+
+"It's not as serious as it seems. You remember Gardner, class of 1909?
+He's out in New Mexico with a U. S. surveying party and he's all right.
+A year or two out there will put me right."
+
+Walter looked at him doubtfully.
+
+"What a chump I must have been all this winter not to see. I wouldn't
+have believed it if I read it in a book."
+
+Bauer smiled again.
+
+"You couldn't do anything if you had known. Nobody could. The change of
+climate will fix me all right. Lucky that money is coming in just now.
+Lots of fellows don't have my good luck."
+
+"Good luck?"
+
+"Yes. I might be sick here without a cent, and be dependent like
+Franklin out at the day camp. I felt awfully sorry for him at the time,
+didn't you?"
+
+"Yes, tell me! but no! it hurts you to talk?"
+
+Bauer nodded. "I don't have any pain to-day. Just weakness. It's only
+one lung, the doc says. It might be my knee joints or my mucous or a
+dozen other places worse than lungs. If you're going to have
+tuberculosis have it when it will raise the most sympathy. If I only had
+a heart-rending cough to go with the hemorrhages I could get some church
+or tuberculosis society to send me out to Arizona free of charge."
+
+Walter was so upset by the whole thing and so disturbed by the
+inevitable revelation that was bound to come that he sat miserably
+silent, while Bauer rambled on in a disconnected manner to all outward
+appearances quite unterrified by his trouble, or at any rate making a
+brave and successful attempt at deceiving his friend. But at last he
+unexpectedly gave Walter an opportunity to lead up to the article in the
+paper.
+
+"Seems a little queer I don't hear from him. I understood Halstead and
+Burns were going to pay at once. Would you mind going down after the
+three o'clock mail? I feel a little uneasy about it. Never had so much
+money before. Probably never will again."
+
+"Did you have any reason to distrust your father?" asked Walter.
+
+"No, I told you his faults were of another sort."
+
+"What would you do if he should try to cheat you out of the money?"
+
+"How could he do that?"
+
+"Didn't you give him power of attorney to act for you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, what would hinder his having the check from Halstead drawn in his
+name instead of yours?"
+
+"Nothing, only------"
+
+"Only what?"
+
+"Why, just sheer humanity."
+
+Bauer was sitting up on the couch, his hands doubled up and his eyes
+fixed on Walter.
+
+"What is it?" he said at last quietly enough. "Are you keeping something
+from me? I would rather have it from you than from anyone else."
+
+"Poor old man!" Walter could not hold back a groan as his eye travelled
+to the paper on the floor.
+
+Bauer saw his glance. "What is it? Read it for me."
+
+Walter put his hands over his face and muttered.
+
+"Oh, I can't, Felix, it's too cruel."
+
+"Nothing's too cruel if you're used to it." He started to get up from
+the couch, but Walter prevented him.
+
+"Lie down there. I'll read it to you if I must, simply because someone
+will have to do it sometime. But I would rather be hanged than do it."
+
+He hardly ventured to look at Bauer when he had finished the newspaper
+account. When he did look at him, he saw him sitting up on the couch,
+his hands clasped over his knees, a slight increase of colour on his
+face but no mark of any unusual anger or feeling.
+
+"How could he do it! How could he!" Bauer whispered to himself, looking
+off into the distance as if Walter were not present. His whole attitude
+affected Walter more deeply than if he had given way to a violent
+passion.
+
+"It's an outrage! There ought to be some way to get the money. You could
+have him arrested when he------"
+
+"Arrest my father? On the charge of being a thief? Would you do that to
+your------"
+
+Walter choked. "Arrest my father? I should think not. But------"
+
+"He may be all you think, but I will never lift a finger against him.
+Let God punish him, as he has already."
+
+"And meanwhile, if Halstead & Co. are informed how matters are, they
+might------"
+
+"It isn't likely. They have paid the money once. Certainly they won't do
+it again. I never heard of any such philanthropists doing business in
+Washington."
+
+"But how will you be able to go out to Arizona?" Walter blurted before
+he thought, and then wanted to bite his tongue off as Bauer turned his
+face towards him, a faint smile lighting it.
+
+"I won't go. 'Wir mussen alie einmal sterben?'"
+
+"But you'll have to go. We'll have to find a way."
+
+"Where there's a will there's a way? Also even more necessary, the
+money. Now I've will enough. But it won't pay for a ticket nor buy the
+necessary canned goods to go with the sand of the desert when I get
+there. I'll set up my incubators here at Burrton and raise chickens
+enough to bury me decently. 'Wir mussen alie einmal sterben.'"
+
+"Yes, but we don't have to die before our time. There must be some way
+out."
+
+"I don't know of any." said Bauer gravely but not with any bitterness.
+"But don't let it worry you. I don't want to have you worried with it."
+
+Nevertheless Walter did worry over it tremendously. He had never known
+anything in all his experience that affected him so profoundly. And in
+his next letter home, without hinting to Bauer of his intention, he
+sounded his father as to ways and means for helping Bauer at this crisis
+in his life.
+
+"Isn't there some one in Milton who would be interested enough in Bauer
+to help send him out to Arizona? The doctor says it's his only chance.
+And he's pretty hard hit. Think of losing $4,500 at one fell swoop, and
+by his own father too. And I advised the business relation between them.
+Of course we had no idea that the matter would turn out as it has but
+that doesn't change the fact. As near as I can figure, it will cost at
+least three hundred dollars to get Bauer out to Arizona, pay for his
+board and room and keep him there a year. He isn't a member of any
+church and Dr. Howard of the Congregational Church here in Burrton said
+a few Sundays ago that his people must make a special effort to raise
+the money to care for several needed cases of their own, so I don't feel
+like going to him with Bauer's story right now. And besides, I don't
+believe Bauer would take church help. He's awfully proud and while he
+doesn't say much about his trouble and pretends to take it easy, I can
+see he is pretty hard hit. And who wouldn't be, to lose $4,500 at one
+clip and at the same time realise that he's got consumption. I tell you
+it strikes me as pretty hard lines for poor Bauer. The worst of it is
+this mess about his father. That seems awful. And there isn't anyone
+more affectionate and dependent than Bauer. That's the reason he took up
+with me, because he had to have someone. He doesn't know I'm writing
+this sort of a letter about him, if he did he'd object, but I feel as if
+something ought to be done. Perhaps you and mother can think out some
+plan to help him. If I could see some way to cut down my expenses here I
+would do it and put in my little to help. But I'm living as close to the
+line as I can. The school is expensive and I don't know what I can do
+until I get out and begin to make instead of mar dollars."
+
+Paul took this letter to Esther. And it happened that while he was
+reading it to her, Helen came in. Paul stopped reading and looked at
+Esther.
+
+"It's all right. Let Helen hear it. I'm sure Walter meant it for a
+family letter."
+
+They were all shocked at the news. And Helen seemed even more moved by
+the letter than her father and mother, though she made no remark of any
+kind until Esther began to look at her with some concern. Paul said,
+after a moment of sober thought:
+
+"I believe Masters can do something for him out there at Tolchaco. There
+is the old Council Hogan out there in the cottonwoods past the 'dobe
+flats. Bauer could sleep there. It's about the same as outdoors. And he
+could do something perhaps at the trading post to help pay for his
+board. I'll write to Masters at once and see what he says. And--I have
+another idea that I think will do something. We can't let a fellow like
+Bauer go down without doing something and if he objects to being helped,
+why, we'll just box him up and ship him out there f. o. b."
+
+After Paul had gone down to the office Mrs. Douglas and Helen continued
+the discussion over Walter's letter.
+
+"What other idea does father have to help Mr. Bauer?" asked Helen.
+
+"I don't know unless he is thinking of that precious book of his!" Mrs.
+Douglas laughed and Helen joined her.
+
+It had come to be a good natured joke in the Douglas household that
+Paul's book was such a great failure that publishers had it listed among
+the "six worst sellers" if anyone ever had the courage to print it. He
+had put in a tremendous amount of hard work on the volume which was a
+bold treatment in original form of the Race Question in America. The
+manuscript had been sent to eight different publishers and had been
+returned, in three instances with scathing comments.
+
+Paul doggedly clung to his first estimate of the book. Each rejection by
+the last publisher only served to increase his faith in what he had
+written.
+
+"I tell you, Esther, the publishers don't know a thing. Half the time
+their office readers can't spell. They don't know gold from mica schist.
+Half the books the publishers put out are dead failures. They don't know
+anything more about it than a native of Ponape knows about making an
+igloo."
+
+Esther smiled.
+
+"You are naturally a little prejudiced, don't you think? But I don't
+blame you. It's lucky for us though, that we don't depend on book sales
+for a living. Let's see, how much has the book cost you so far?"
+
+"Well, in typewriting, and postage on returned manuscript it has cost me
+about one hundred and fifty dollars," said Paul good naturedly. "But
+I'll send it to every publisher in America before I'll give up. I've
+written a good book and I know it. And I've made up my mind to one
+thing, Esther. When it comes to making terms I'll sell the manuscript
+outright for cash and give the money away to the most needy cause I can
+find."
+
+"Better have the stipulation with the publishers stereotyped, father,"
+said Helen, who was present when this conversation was held. "It will
+save you time and money."
+
+"Very well, Miss," replied her father. "But don't you dare ask for any
+of this extra when my ship does come in. Not a cent of it does this
+ungrateful, unappreciative family get. It is my book and the 'child of
+my heart' and if it brings me anything I will spend it in riotous living
+on the other fellow."
+
+Esther and Helen laughed and Paul went down to the office and
+courageously expressed the manuscript to one of the eastern publishers
+who had not yet seen it.
+
+All this had occurred several months before Walter's letter about Bauer
+and when Paul went down to the office after getting the news his heart
+and mind were burdened with plans for Bauer's relief. He began to open
+his mail and a letter from the eastern publisher specially interested
+him. After reading it, he looked at the check accompanying the letter
+and chuckled in anticipation of meeting Esther and Helen at lunch when
+he came home.
+
+The mother and daughter were continuing their talk about Walter's
+letter.
+
+"Can Mr. Bauer get well out there? Walter did not say very clearly?"
+Helen asked.
+
+"Many cases like this do recover," said Esther. "But he ought to go at
+once. If he is having severe hemorrhages that will be his only hope."
+
+Helen was silent for some moments.
+
+"How much did Walter say it would cost to keep him out there a year?"
+
+"He said three hundred dollars."
+
+"It seems like a very small sum, doesn't it?"
+
+"It certainly does. But you remember in some of Mr. Masters's letters to
+your father about the mission expenses at Tolchaco how ridiculous the
+amounts seemed to us? You remember one year the entire mission force
+including seven persons lived on less than fifteen dollars a month for
+each? I suppose Walter had something like that in mind. And you remember
+how often in his letters Walter has spoken of Bauer's horror of the
+luxurious habits of one of the students at Burrton as if it were a great
+wrong?"
+
+"It was Van Shaw," said Helen with a short laugh. "Walter spoke last
+Christmas about the solid silver dog collars Mr. Van Shaw purchased for
+his kennel. Fancy Mr. Bauer buying solid silver dog collars! Fancy him
+even buying a dog!"
+
+"Unless it was to prevent someone from abusing it. I never met a young
+man with such a kind heart as Bauer."
+
+Helen did not answer. She sat with her hands clasped over her knees,
+looking off through the window. At last she rose and went into her room,
+and returned almost immediately.
+
+"Mother," she said, with a note of hesitation that was new to her,
+"would it be all right for me to help Mr. Bauer out of my allowance? If
+the rest of the family is going to help I'd like to give twenty-five
+dollars."
+
+She put the money into her mother's lap and sat down in front of her.
+
+Mrs. Douglas was startled at the girl's perfectly transparent act. She
+thought she knew Helen, but for a moment she questioned her own insight.
+Then she did what she had always done in the intimacy she had encouraged
+between herself and her children.
+
+"Why do you want to do this, Helen?"
+
+"Because--because I can't help feeling------"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I don't love him, mother,--no,--I am sure of myself. But it seems
+dreadful to think of him dying, just because of the need of a little
+money. I have never been sick. I wonder how I should feel to face such a
+fate. I believe it would drive me crazy."
+
+"But how do you think Mr. Bauer will understand your gift? If he is so
+sensitive as Walter says------"
+
+Over Helen's face the warm colour swept.
+
+"Why does he need to know? We are all going to help, aren't we? But we
+don't need to tell him. I would not have him know for the world."
+
+"Wait till father comes home. We will talk it over with him," said
+Esther after a pause. "I don't question your sincerity. It is a terrible
+loss to lose the physical strength and face death at a sure distance.
+Poor Bauer! And all that family trouble, too. He never hinted at that
+when he was here."
+
+Helen recalled her innocent questioning of Bauer about his people and
+the silence he had maintained at the time. In the light of what she knew
+now, the figure of the German student assumed a tragic character,
+invested with deep pathos, and she had to confess that it was treading
+on dangerous ground to dwell too long on the picture. Still she asserted
+stoutly that her feeling was one of simple friendship, and even went so
+far as to anticipate a possible question again on her mother's part.
+
+"You must not think, Mommy, that I have any other feeling for him. That
+is not possible. The man I marry must have money. And poor Mr. Bauer has
+lost all of his. That is the reason I am willing to help him. Money
+seems so absolutely necessary in this world, mother, isn't it?"
+
+"Not so necessary as a good many other things."
+
+"But in this case, mother, what else can do any good? It is money that
+Mr. Bauer needs. Not sympathy nor--nor--even friendship, just money. Is
+there anything else that can save his life?"
+
+"It seems not."
+
+"Then money is the great thing," said Helen with a show of getting the
+better of her mother in an argument. "I don't pretend to hide my
+admiration for money. You know, mother, it is the most powerful thing in
+the world."
+
+"There are other things," said Esther quietly. She did not try to argue
+with Helen over the subject. They had several times gone over the same
+ground and each time Esther had realised more deeply and with a growing
+feeling of pain that Helen had almost a morbid passion for money and the
+things that money could buy. She was not avaricious. On the contrary,
+she was remarkably generous and unselfish in the use of her allowance.
+But there was a deep and far reaching prejudice in the girl's mind for
+all the brilliant, soft, luxurious, elegant side of wealth and its
+allurements that made Esther tremble more and more for the girl's
+future, especially when her marriage was thought of.
+
+All this had its bearing on Esther's thought of Bauer. He had never been
+to her a possible thought as Helen's lover. All his own and his people's
+history were against him. But no one had ever come into the Douglas
+family circle who had won such a feeling of esteem, and Esther had felt
+drawn towards the truly homeless lad with a compassion that might in
+time have yielded to him a place as a possible member of the family. Now
+anything like that relation seemed remote, and Helen's own frank
+declaration put the matter out of the question. Over all these things
+Esther Douglas pondered and in her simple straightforward fashion laid
+them at the feet of her God for the help she could not give herself.
+
+When Paul came home to luncheon both Esther and Helen could see at once
+that something had happened greatly to please him. Paul was transparent
+and never made any pretence at any sort of concealment of his feelings.
+
+"Yes, now you people laugh at that," he said as he handed the eastern
+publisher's letter over to Esther.
+
+Esther read the letter out loud. It was an extended business statement
+acknowledging the receipt of the book manuscript and Paul's blunt
+announcement of the terms he was willing to make for it publication;
+cash down, waiving all royalty rights, the book to be published entirely
+at the publisher's risk and the plates to be the property of the
+publishing house, no rights reserved for the author.
+
+The eastern publisher acknowledged the frankness of the author's note,
+which he said was unusual. Also the terms, which were not generally
+considered, few manuscripts being purchased outright by the firm.
+However, the book was more than favourably reported by two of the three
+principal readers and by the senior member of the house, and they were
+prepared to make an offer in the shape of the enclosed check which it
+was hoped would be satisfactory to Mr. Douglas.
+
+"Five hundred," said Esther, reading the amount as she held up the check
+for Helen to see. "Why, isn't it worth more than that?"
+
+"The way you people have been talking lately," said Paul, pretending
+great indignation, "it wasn't worth five cents. I'm satisfied. At ten
+per cent royalty they would have to sell five thousand copies and it
+would be two or three years before I got the money. No, I prefer the
+cash, and let them take the risk. Now we can help Bauer. That is, I can.
+This is all my philanthropy. I'll send one hundred dollars to Masters
+for the mission work and the balance for Bauer. Walter's estimate of
+three hundred dollars a year is too small. It won't give the fellow the
+things he needs. My! But won't it be fine to help him! There's nothing
+like money, is there, Esther?"
+
+"Just what I keep telling her," said Helen, her eyes sparkling and her
+lips smiling at the sight of her mother's somewhat grave acceptance of
+Paul's statement.
+
+"I'm glad he is going to get the benefit of it," said Esther heartily.
+"And I think we owe you an apology for the way we have treated your
+little book. I feel proud to think my husband can write a five hundred
+dollar book. I hope it will be one of the six best sellers."
+
+"If it is, the publishers will make a lot," said Paul. "But I hardly
+think it. Trashy fiction makes best sellers. My book is written to make
+people think, not to lose their thoughts. So I've no false ambitions for
+it."
+
+As a matter of fact, in course of time Paul's volume sold between seven
+and eight thousand copies and then the sale ceased. But the book had
+good notices from several thoughtful reviewers and gave him considerable
+advertising, encouraging him to go on with another volume on popular
+government.
+
+"Now the problem will be to get Bauer to take the money," said Esther.
+"It's going to be a delicate matter."
+
+"Do you think so? I hadn't thought of that. Surely Walter can manage it.
+He will have to take it."
+
+"I think you will find it is not so easy. It seemed to me last winter
+that Mr. Bauer was about the most stubborn and independent young man I
+ever saw."
+
+"But what can he do? He can't help himself. He will have to take it."
+
+"Leave it to Walter to manage," said Esther. "He is better acquainted
+with him than we are."
+
+So Paul wrote Walter, enclosing a check for $400, and asking him to
+manage the matter with Bauer the best he could, and at the same time he
+wrote to Masters telling him of Bauer and making inquiry about the
+climate and especially concerning the possibility of Bauer fitting into
+any work about the mission.
+
+After Paul had gone away from the table to his office to attend to this
+matter, Esther took out Helen's money and quietly handed it to her.
+
+"You won't need to offer this now."
+
+"No, not now," said Helen, blushing.
+
+"Nor any time, I hope. If Mr. Bauer gets well there at Tolchaco he will
+probably be able to secure permanent work and take care of himself."
+
+"Yes," Helen said, after a pause in which she seemed to her mother about
+to make a confidence. But she did not seem quite certain of herself and
+finally without any more words went up to her room.
+
+Two days later Walter received his father's letter which he read with a
+sense of great rejoicing.
+
+"Why, it's just like a story book! Dear old pater! He's the best ever!"
+
+Then he took up the check and began to consider how he would present the
+matter to Bauer. No one knew better than himself how sensitive Bauer
+could be on occasion. But he was helpless, and under the circumstances,
+what else could he do but let his friends come to his assistance? If
+there was no other way he could probably be prevailed on to take the
+money as a loan and pay back when his royalties came due on the
+incubator sales.
+
+He was going over the matter when Bauer came in from his room across the
+hall.
+
+"How goes it?" asked Walter cheerfully.
+
+"All right," said Bauer gravely. "I don't believe anything ails me.
+Haven't had another since the last one."
+
+"No? Well, what you want to do is to get right out to the painted
+desert. Why don't you start?"
+
+"The walking is poor, and I never did enjoy the hot, dusty cars."
+
+"Letters!" said one of the boys who roomed on the next floor. He opened
+the door as he spoke and threw Walter two letters and seeing Bauer, he
+said, "One for you!" threw it at him and went on.
+
+Walter opened his letters, which were from his mother and Louis. When he
+looked up from his reading and glanced at Bauer he saw that something
+had happened.
+
+"From him," said Bauer briefly.
+
+He handed his letter over to Walter. It was dated and postmarked at
+Monte Carlo and contained a draft on New York for four hundred dollars.
+
+"I don't ask you to do anything or forgive or anything like that. But as
+proof that hell is better than this place, I am sending you the last
+dollar I have after losing the rest of it at the table. Perhaps, even in
+hell where I am going, there will be some respite granted me for not
+being totally depraved."
+
+That was all, not even an initial signed.
+
+"It means------" Walter stammered.
+
+"That he has committed suicide--yes--I suppose--"
+
+"But there's been no newspaper account item in the New York journals."
+
+Bauer shook his head. "The cases at Monte Carlo don't get into the
+newspapers." And then to Walter's embarrassment, Bauer broke down and
+sobbed as if he would never stop. But after all, his father, in spite of
+his sins, had really loved the boy, and Bauer was of a very affectionate
+nature which had never in all his lifetime been satisfied.
+
+Before Walter could offer a word of sympathy Bauer got up and bolted for
+his room. Walter suspected what was coming and before Bauer could lock
+his door he had gone in after him. The hemorrhage was severe. When Bauer
+was through with it and on his couch, Walter rapidly outlined a plan for
+Bauer. He must get out to the painted desert at once.
+
+"I wanted to wait until you could go, but it isn't fair to ask you
+before term closes and that won't be for six weeks. Oh, yes, I can make
+it alone all right. Don't worry over that. And now I've got this money,
+that settles it."
+
+Walter wondered if he ought to tell him about the money from home.
+Finally he did tell him frankly and was pleased at the way Bauer took
+it. When Walter suggested that in case he had to stay out there any
+length of time, the money would be held in trust for him, Bauer did not
+object, simply saying that by that time he would either be well or dead.
+
+Two days after this, Paul wrote that Mr. Masters at Tolchaco had written
+cordially, saying Bauer would be welcome at the mission and could have
+the old Council Hogan. He thought if his case was like a number of
+others he had known, that it would be perfectly possible for him in a
+year or two to be of real service about the mission.
+
+Walter gave out all this information as he helped Bauer pack up. He had
+misgivings about letting him start alone, but after consulting the
+doctor, concluded there was no special risk for Bauer and when the day
+came for him to leave, he was much pleased to note Bauer's good spirits
+in spite of the shock of his father's act and his own dubious future.
+
+Masters had sent word that Bauer was to go to Canyon Diablo where a wagon
+would be waiting to drive him the twenty-four miles to Tolchaco. Walter
+went down and saw him comfortably started and then went back to his
+room, feeling relieved to know that matters were going so well, after
+promising Bauer that if possible he would come and see him during the
+summer. It would depend on the financial outlook.
+
+At Chicago, Bauer changed to a tourist car and found as companions, two
+other young men, both going to Flagstaff to live in tents at the base of
+the San Francisco Mountains. Before reaching Albuquerque the three young
+men had become well acquainted and had good naturedly exchanged joking
+statements about their "cases," and Bauer, who had suffered from a
+slight flow just after leaving Kansas city, boasted that he was able to
+control his lungs by pressing his tongue hard against the roof of his
+mouth and resting his chest on the back of the car seat in front.
+
+When the train reached Hardy, a few miles north of the Little Colorado,
+there was a long stop, explained by the conductor as caused by a
+cloudburst at Winslow. The train made several attempts to start on to
+Colfax, but finally backed slowly down into Hardy, where it was stalled
+for the night. In the morning the information slowly reached the
+passengers that there were fifteen miles of washouts east of Winslow and
+it would be an indefinite time before repairs could be made.
+
+A few cowboys, Mexicans and Indians were evidently chronic and constant
+loafers about the little station. Among them was a teamster loading
+stuff on a wagon. Bauer noticed two boxes marked Tolchaco and asked the
+man about them.
+
+"I'm taking them over by Mr. Masters's orders. Usually go to Canyon
+Diablo, but no telling how long it'll be to get there with number two.
+Mr. Masters wants the stuff bad. Truck for them Injuns at the mission."
+
+"But aren't we on the north side of the river here? How will you get
+over to the mission? Isn't that on the other side?" asked Bauer.
+
+"Sure. We can ford it there, if the water ain't too fierce."
+
+Bauer thought awhile and then asked if he might go with the teamster.
+There was room in the wagon for his trunk and bag, and after securing
+his effects from the train he transferred to the wagon, and bidding a
+cheery farewell to his travelling companions, who he said might have to
+stay on the train two or three days, the teamster drove off with Bauer
+across the shimmering desert.
+
+They reached the river the next day about noon, after a glorious night
+which Bauer will never forget, as he slept with his face upturned to the
+diamond stars of that desert expanse, breathing that pure air of God's
+all out of doors.
+
+The river was high from the recent heavy rains in the mountains but the
+teamster said he could make the ford all right. This was at a point
+nearly a mile above the mission which was not visible owing to a bend in
+the stream.
+
+Bauer, who was totally unfamiliar with the country, the river, the
+customs, the entire situation, calmly sat in his place as the driver
+started his team down the shelving bank into the chocolate coloured
+stream.
+
+The water was a little over the hubs of the wheels at first and it
+seemed to be of that uniform depth as the horses slowly walked along.
+But suddenly without warning the off horse sank down clear over his
+back. The next minute the wagon wheels tipped down as if they had run
+over the edge of a precipice a mile high.
+
+The driver yelled and swore in several languages, but the nigh horse
+plunged and then sank over his back. The current caught the entire
+outfit and turned it completely over, tumbling horses, wagon and stuff
+over and over like a roller. As Bauer felt the water closing over him he
+had a momentary glimpse of two figures on the south bank of the river
+running and gesticulating, one a man, the other a woman. He felt himself
+struggling in a confused tangle of wagon wheels, floundering horses,
+yelling driver, boxes and muddy water. Then something struck him on the
+head. He struggled to help himself, throwing his arms out blindly, was
+aware that someone had hold of his hair and was striking him in the
+face, of a great roaring and rushing sound, and then he lost all
+consciousness as the river bore him and his would-be rescuers down the
+stream together.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE penetrating light of the desert came into the east opening of the
+Council Hogan at Tolchaco, and bathed in its enveloping flood the strip
+of sand that lay in the opening, up to a white and black Navajo rug on
+which was lying a quiet figure over which had been thrown a bright
+coloured Mexican serape.
+
+An old Indian was sitting outside the hogan close by the entrance, and
+within an arm's length just inside sat a white man gravely watching the
+recumbent figure on the rug.
+
+Across the figure on the rug, opposite the white man, sat a young woman,
+also quietly and gravely watching.
+
+Outside, the 'dobe flats stretched brown and bare until they melted into
+the confused and fantastic rock piles of twisted and pictured desert
+stone. In the other direction an irregular streak of light green trailed
+along, marking the winding of the river bound by twisted cottonwoods and
+vivid patches of corn fields. Through the shimmer of the heat far off,
+fifty miles distant, were flung up against a turquoise sky the peaks of
+the San Francisco mountains, across the front of which a trailing cloud
+had begun to form. On a slightly rising ledge of rock stood the mission
+buildings, and through the clear still air, children's voices came
+floating down to the hogan, where the white man and the young woman were
+silently watching. A group of Navajos was gathered at the trader's
+store, some little distance away, their faces turned in the direction of
+the hogan, their ponies standing near by or tethered to the cottonwood,
+by the river.
+
+Suddenly the figure on the rug stirred, its right arm rose slowly and
+the hand made an effort to touch the fringe of the serape.
+
+The white man stooped forward, gently took the hand and held it a moment
+in his own. As he laid it down, he smiled at the other watcher and said:
+
+"I believe he's coming on all right. The Father is good to him."
+
+The young woman put her hands over her face and her fingers were
+trembling. A tear was on her cheek when she took her hands away and
+clasped them over her knees. Then she rose and went out of the eastern
+doorway, when she stood a moment, her clear gaze resting on the old
+Indian sitting there with his back against the hogan. He raised his head
+and asked her a question.
+
+"Yes, the Father is good. He will live, Mr. Clifford says."
+
+She went back into the hogan and to her surprise the figure on the rug
+was sitting up. It was Bauer, and he was saying in his slow, deliberate
+fashion:
+
+"I'm not certain, I seem to be confused, but this is Tolchaco, isn't it?
+When did I arrive? I don't seem to remember well."
+
+"You arrived rather unexpectedly yesterday," said Clifford, with a smile
+that had a good day's nursing in it. "In fact, you arrived in a hurry.
+Don't talk. You don't have to."
+
+"My head," said Bauer, and he laid down again.
+
+"That's right, son. We prescribe perfect quiet for you. You don't need
+even to ask a question. There will be time enough."
+
+And so Bauer found out as the desert days slipped by and he slowly and
+surely drank in health and strength. He would lie there in perfect
+contentment, each day noting a little more of life. The nights were
+splendid with God's own peace. The friends would place his cot near the
+opening of the hogan and from where he lay he could see the stars come
+out and blaze all up the half dome of the visible sky, Peshlekietsetti,
+the old silver smith, who had been near the door the first morning after
+the accident on the river, would come and sit down inside the hogan to
+relieve the other watchers. And even after there was no particular need
+of special nursing, the old man would come and gravely, without attempt
+to speak, sit there by him, occasionally working at some bit of silver
+ornament. Groups of the children from the mission would come and stand
+at the hogan opening, and often come by twos or threes sent by Mr.
+Clifford with some token which they left on the sand and then shyly ran
+back to the mission. The doctor at Flagstaff had been over and he had
+pronounced Bauer's case to be entirely susceptible to climate, diet and
+time. And Bauer, who had heard him talking with Clifford, from that
+moment made wonderful progress, and to Clifford's delight was soon able
+to walk about, and even go as far as the river, where he would sit down
+on the fallen trunk of an old cottonwood and watch the Navajos on the
+other side cultivate their corn and melon patches.
+
+He was sitting there one afternoon watching the thick waters trickling
+by and wondering how such an insignificant and shallow stream could
+overturn a heavy wagon and two horses, when the man called Clifford, who
+had been mending a harness at a bench under a tree near by, came and sat
+down by him, bringing a part of his work from the bench.
+
+"I have a lot of questions I want to ask," said Bauer, watching the
+Mission worker as he sewed on a buckle.
+
+"All right. But before you begin might as well say to you I was born in
+Vermont."
+
+"Born in Vermont?"
+
+"Yes, ever hear of it?"
+
+"Yes," said Bauer slowly. "But what has that to do with my asking
+questions?"
+
+"You'll see when you begin."
+
+Bauer smiled at the other's irresistible grin. He had already made up
+his mind to like Clifford tremendously.
+
+"Well, then, I want to know, first, who saved my life when I was
+drowning?"
+
+"Why don't you ask Miss Gray?"
+
+"I will, if you can't tell me."
+
+Clifford chuckled softly.
+
+"I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. But do you feel strong enough to
+stand a good sized shock?"
+
+"It takes a good deal to shock me," said Bauer gravely, his mind
+recurring to his father.
+
+"Of course we haven't encouraged your talking much up to this time, and
+you don't strike me as a very rapid fire speaker, not exactly what is
+called garrulous, you know. We've been wondering whether you would care
+to hear about your little upset in there."
+
+Bauer coloured a little. "I feel somewhat ashamed to think I haven't
+asked before--But------"
+
+"Yes, we know. Perfectly. You don't need to say anything. But you feel
+pretty strong now, don't you?"
+
+"Yes," said Bauer patiently. "I feel strong enough to know a good many
+things about this wonderful place."
+
+"'Tis wonderful, isn't it?" said Clifford, laying his work down on the
+log and pointing at the river. "That old stream is one of the queerest
+productions God ever made. I'm not criticising it, or saying I could
+have done any better. But one day it rares up big enough to drown a pair
+of hippopotamuses and the next day a child can dam it up with a piece of
+mud, and the dust blows out of the channel so bad that it needs a
+sprinkler to settle it. That's the Little Colorado. It will bear
+watching."
+
+Clifford picked up his work and seemed to be waiting for Bauer to repeat
+his question, but that was not Bauer's way, and Clifford, after glancing
+at him sharply, laughed and said:
+
+"You can thank Miss Gray for pulling you out of the river."
+
+"Miss Gray?"
+
+"Yes. We sort of suspicioned that Tracker, that's the teamster you came
+up with from Hardy, would try the ford and we went up there that day to
+tell him not to go in because a part of the ford ledge had broken off
+and we feared he hadn't heard of it. Well, we were too late. You had
+driven down the bank and were half way across before we sighted you.
+Miss Gray was in the water before you upset. She knew it was bound to
+come. I got tangled up with the horses and Tracker------"
+
+"Wait!" said Bauer with more emotion than he could control, "do you mean
+to say that Miss Gray and you swam out to us while we were being rolled
+over------"
+
+"Well, what would you do? I was occupied, as I said, with Tracker and
+the horses, and half the time I couldn't tell 'em apart. But I saw Miss
+Gray grab you by the hair and then she--you'll forgive her for it, I
+hope--she struck you with her fist right in the face."
+
+Bauer looked bewildered. "What did she do that for?"
+
+"I thought maybe you would want to know. I would. Well, how could she
+save you when your arms were thrashing around like a windmill and you
+were liable to grab her arms and drown her and you, too. So she had to
+strike you. I know she is waiting till you get a little stronger so she
+can apologise."
+
+"Apologise," murmured Bauer.
+
+"Yes. It wasn't a ladylike thing to do in polite society. But there
+wasn't time to ask your permission or tell you why it was necessary.
+Well, after that little incident, Tracker and the horses and I got so
+mixed up with each other that we haven't hardly got untangled since.
+There was one time there when I wasn't quite certain whether I was a
+horse or a wagon wheel. We drifted down here and it just seemed
+providential and saved a lot of carrying when we finally got out right
+here."
+
+Clifford pointed to a spot down the stream a short ways from where they
+were sitting.
+
+"We saved the horses, cut the harness to bits off of 'em, but the wagon
+went down and got sucked into the Black Bear quicksands and you can see
+one of the wheels. See! over there."
+
+Clifford stood up and Bauer in his excitement got up on the log to see
+better. Far down the channel near the opposite bank, one wheel of the
+teamster's wagon showed a little, the rest of the vehicle buried in the
+treacherous sands.
+
+"You and Miss Gray came ashore up above. Right there." Clifford pointed
+to a great root of a tree that swayed out from an old stump six feet
+above the channel. It protruded from the bank like some fantastic
+sprawling arm.
+
+"She grabbed that old root as you went whirling down and I guess it was
+about time. We had quite a time pumping the water out of her and for one
+while,--but it's lucky you have a good head of hair and that you hadn't
+been to a barber lately. Miss Gray got a regular grip on it. We had
+quite a time separating her fingers from your locks. You see, I'm
+telling you because I thought maybe she might be a little timid about
+the details. If she has to apologise for hitting you in the face, it
+would be too bad to have to go on and ask to be excused for pulling your
+hair."
+
+"Pulling my hair," murmured Bauer, in astonishment.
+
+"Yes," said Clifford, winking one eye. "Pulling it as if she wanted a
+lock to remember you by. But that's nothing. You ought to see Miss Gray
+pull two Hopis out of the river one day last winter. That was just above
+the Black Falls. A Hopi can't swim any more than a sailor. But they
+never cut their hair, so it's just made for rescue work. You're the
+fifth person Miss Gray has pulled out of this so-called stream. She's
+entitled to that many Carnegie medals, but no one knows about it down
+east and our daily papers here at Tolchaco never mention such common
+events as rescue from drowning. That isn't news."
+
+Bauer was silent for several minutes as Clifford resumed his work. He
+had been obliged to thread a needle and in the process had put the end
+of the thread in his mouth.
+
+"You don't mind if I ask more questions? It's all so remarkable here and
+all that's happened. I would like------"
+
+"Don't hesitate. It is one of the rules of the Mission here never to get
+offended, no matter what anyone says. You couldn't hurt our feelings if
+you tried."
+
+"And I don't want to try. I don't know how I'm going to express my
+thanks for all you have done, and especially to Miss Gray."
+
+"That is a kind of difficult place, isn't it? Now I was never rescued by
+anyone; and I don't know just what I would say. 'Thank you' sounds kind
+of tame. Perhaps you could throw it into German and make it sound
+better."
+
+Bauer looked embarrassed and Clifford at once hastened to say.
+
+"Don't worry over a little matter like that. You don't need to say
+anything about it. Miss Gray will say she was only too glad to do it,
+no trouble at all, don't think of such a thing, etc. You know how the
+ladies talk. If you go to say anything about it that's what she will
+say, ten to one. You needn't be afraid she'll ask you to marry her or
+anything like that."
+
+Bauer blushed furiously and Clifford laughed so heartily that Bauer
+could not help joining him, although he had never met anyone like
+Clifford and did not exactly understand him.
+
+"Tell me about yourself, Mr. Clifford. I'm not a native of Vermont but I
+am curious and I've been wondering as I lay in the hogan what your
+position here was, if you will pardon me?"
+
+"Pardon you?" said Clifford cheerfully, as he proceeded to punch holes
+in a tug. "There's nothing I like to talk about so much as myself. You
+couldn't hit on a more interesting topic of conversation for me. Well,
+I'm a general all around missionary at large and handy man. One day I
+shoe the horses and next day I help Mr. Masters translate the Bible into
+Navajo. Next day I dig a well and day after that I help old Touchiniteel
+build a house. Then I send word to the President of the U. S. to let him
+know that the cattle men at Flagstaff are trespassing on our rights at
+Canyon Diablo and next day I'm medicine man for some poor devil that has
+tumbled over the twisted falls at Neota. I teach school while Mr. and
+Mrs. Masters are gone right now over to Tuba at the convention. And when
+there isn't anything else to do, I help Miss Gray rescue people from
+that old mud hole. Being a missionary is no end of fun. It's a wonder to
+me how most people get any fun out of life unless they are
+missionaries."
+
+"And the elderly woman who wears glasses is your sister. She has been so
+kind to me. I can never repay her."
+
+"Don't try. Yes, Hannah and I have been here at Tolchaco a long time. We
+have had the fun of our lives here. She does about everything in the
+house from washing the dishes to converting the heathen. She works for
+nothing and throws in her time."
+
+"And--and Miss Gray?"
+
+"I thought maybe you might enquire about her, after awhile. Well, Miss
+Gray is one of the salt of the earth. She's a whole salt mine. She's not
+been here long, but she's got 'em all going,--Indians, cowboys, traders,
+gamblers, missionaries, teamsters, everybody. Everybody is in love with
+her. I've asked her to marry me several times, that is, I've only asked
+her to marry me once, several times, and I get the same answer every
+time. She's a graduate of Mt. Holyoke and used to be physical director
+of the girl's school at Peekskill. That's where she learned to swim and
+rescue people. She knows several languages and can talk Navajo better
+than Peshlekietsetti. And she is the friend of every Indian, Navajo or
+Hopi, between Sunshine and Castle Butte. And she is not proud a little
+bit. And cheerful? Well, she is just as cheerful every time she says no
+to me as if it was the first time. And she can sing--you've heard her
+Sunday nights. She can sing a rattlesnake out of its skin. Well, there
+is a lot more, but I consider that much a pretty good introduction. If I
+had one like it, I'd feel as if the press notices had the performance
+distanced a mile."
+
+Bauer stared at Clifford, hardly knowing how to take all he said. The
+German mind was not acclimated to this special kind of humour. But
+Clifford was so absolutely frank, and happy, so free from any hint of
+heartbreak or trouble, that the more Bauer listened to him the more he
+liked him and the more fascinated he became with his peculiar
+surroundings. He had never known any real Christian people except the
+Douglas family, and the spectacle of the genuine self sacrifice, the
+bearing of daily discomfort and pain and wrong, with such cheerfulness
+and even hilarity, moved him with a feeling of astonishment.
+
+Clifford's description of Miss Gray filled Bauer with wonder that a
+young woman of such character and attainments was willing to go to such
+a place and give her life to the seemingly impossible task of
+Christianising a lot of dirty, superstitious, lazy Indians. That was his
+definition of her task and of the people whom she had come to serve. But
+he had not yet learned even the first short lesson of the attractiveness
+of the missionary call. And he had not even a glimmer of the great fact
+that the history of missions in every age reveals the beautiful fact
+that some of earth's choicest spirits have considered missionary work as
+the most honourable and honouring work in the world, and that no grace
+or strength of mind or body is too great to pour it all out unstintedly
+on just such dirty, unattractive beings as Indians. Bauer was destined
+to begin by pitying a mistake which such a young woman as Miss Gray was
+making, and end by envying her the place which she had made for herself
+in the hearts of these neglected people.
+
+He was silent during a period while Clifford was busy with some part of
+his harness demanding his attention, then Clifford said, after whistling
+a bar of "Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go":
+
+"Any more of our folks you want ante mortem epitaphs of?"
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Masters. Of course I've not seen them. I've heard Mr. and
+Mrs. Douglas speak of them. It was through Mr. Douglas, you know, that I
+came out here."
+
+"Yes, the Douglases are good friends of the mission. Mr. Douglas sends
+us two hundred dollars a year and sometimes as high as four hundred and
+twenty. Wish he'd come out here and bring his family. Hasn't he got a
+daughter by the name of Helen?"
+
+"Yes," said Bauer. And try as hard as he would he could not conceal his
+embarrassment.
+
+"Do you know her? Is she a nice girl?"
+
+"Yes," said Bauer, again blushing deeply. And then he hastened to say,
+quickly for him:
+
+"You were going to tell me about Mr. and Mrs. Masters?"
+
+"Oh, was I? Well, they're the salt of the earth, too. They don't count
+any cost and the harder the work, the better it seems to suit. Mr.
+Masters can live on eighteen dollars a month and board himself. There
+isn't anything he can't do, from making a windmill out of a bushel of
+old tin cans to preaching seven times on Sunday. And Mrs. Masters is a
+prize winner for making trouble feel ashamed of itself. She never
+complains about anything. One week last summer we had eight days of
+continuous wind. You never saw a desert wind, did you? Or taste one?
+Well, you have one of the times of your life coming to you. The sand
+cavorts around like spring lamb and peas. You can't shut it out of a
+hardboiled egg. It drifts into the house and covers the dishes and the
+beds and the books and the chairs and the floors and does the work of
+blotting paper while you're writing letters to the Agricultural
+Department in Washington asking them to irrigate the Little Colorado so
+we can raise garden truck in the channel between the rainy seasons. At
+the dinner table the custard pie looks as if it was dusted with
+pulverised sugar and you eat so much sand that you begin to feel the
+need of a gizzard like a hen. It fills your pockets, and at night you
+can shake a pint out of each ear, if your ears are big enough. It drifts
+up on the porch like snow and sifts through a pane of glass like a
+sieve.
+
+"Well, all through that eight-day week, Mrs. Masters was so cheerful it
+was actually depressing. She couldn't have looked more cheerful if she
+had been going over to Flagstaff to sit for her photograph on her
+birthday. The rest of us just groaned and bore it. We lost our temper
+with one another and never found it again till the wind quit. We were
+ornery and fractious. We just couldn't help it. But Mrs. Masters went
+around the house nursing the baby and a toothache and singing so loud
+you could hear her way out to the graveyard:
+
+    "'The sands of Time are sinking,
+    The dawn of heaven breaks,
+    The summer morn I've sighed for,
+    The fair sweet morn awakes.'
+
+"My! I used to think to myself if the man that wrote that hymn knew how
+the sands of Tolchaco were sinking into our hair and spirits, he'd a
+written another verse, to cheer us on our sandy way. But any woman that
+can keep up her spirits during a desert sand storm is more than a half
+sister to a cherubim. I don't want to know anyone better than that. It
+would scare me to be in the same room alone with him."
+
+"I'm sure I shall like them both," said Bauer. "It seems to me that all
+the people here at this mission are pretty near the angels."
+
+"Well, some of us are a little lower, I guess. But we do have some jolly
+times and no mistake. Barring the heat and the sand and the floods and
+the drinking water and the wind and the canned goods and the absence of
+pasture and the high price of hay and the lack of shade and a few other
+little things, Tolchaco is a great resort all the year around for people
+that aren't too particular about trifles.
+
+"But you've pumped me dry about us; mind if I ask a few questions about
+you?"
+
+"No," said Bauer with a smile. "There isn't much for me to tell."
+
+"I take it you're a German to start with?" said Clifford gravely, but he
+managed in some remarkable manner to work and whistle at the same time
+he spoke.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You won't have much use for the language out here, except Miss Gray
+uses it if she wants to. She's reading a book right now in German,
+written by a Mr. Goethe. If I had a name like that, I'd have it broken
+up and set again in a new frame. Mr. Douglas in his letter about you
+said you were an inventor by trade. But he didn't go into particulars.
+What can you invent?"
+
+Bauer started to tell Clifford about his incubator. Clifford grew so
+interested that he dropped his work and came over on the log by Bauer to
+listen. He was just eagerly beginning to ask a number of questions when
+he looked up and exclaimed,
+
+"There's that old white face broke his hobbles again and he's heading
+for the corn patch. I'll have to head him off."
+
+He started towards the unshackled offender, and Bauer was amused to see
+the animal, the moment it caught sight of its keeper kick up its heels
+and make a dash for the 'dobe flats into which it madly galloped,
+Clifford disappearing in its wake, enveloped in a cloud of dust.
+
+The afternoon sun was pleasantly flecked as it sifted down through the
+cottonwoods on Bauer, and he sat there going over his talk with Clifford
+and smiling once in awhile in his own fashion as he recalled a sentence
+here and there. It was pleasant to be with friends, to feel the strength
+coming back, to note the response of his lungs to the full drawn breath.
+He had not had a hemorrhage since reaching Tolchaco. And in spite of his
+submersion in the river he had suffered almost no pain. He began to
+construct some kind of a future, and wonder what he could do while at
+the mission to help in any way. He was paying for his board, and by the
+plan arranged between Douglas and Masters they were to provide medical
+help or nursing if necessary. But Bauer had surprised everyone by his
+wonderful response to nature's help and it looked now very much as if in
+less than six months he would be on the road to full recovery. It was
+now the last of June and the desert heat was pulsing over all the
+strange land, but Bauer was drinking in health and beginning to yield to
+the glamour of the place.
+
+"Guide me, Oh, Thou Great Jehovah, Pilgrim through this desert land"--a
+voice soared up close by, ringing down past Bauer, and he looked up
+towards the Mission.
+
+Down the slight elevation came a young woman with a group of children
+following. As they came down near where he sat, Bauer saw it was Miss
+Gray and half a dozen of her charges who had been left in her care while
+Miss Clifford and one of the housemaids had driven over to the Canyon to
+see a sick woman.
+
+She came and sat down on the sand at the side of the old log and said in
+a perfectly simple and friendly manner, free from all hint of
+embarrassment:
+
+"I saw you were all alone here, Mr. Bauer, and came down to see if there
+was anything you needed. If you want to be alone, I'll go away."
+
+"Why, no, I don't need anything, and I don't want you to go away, at
+least not until I have tried to tell you what is not easy to say, what a
+wonderful thing that you--that you actually saved my life from that
+treacherous stream!"
+
+"Oh, I was only too glad to do it, it wasn't any trouble at all, don't
+think of such a thing," the young woman tried to speak lightly, thinking
+she detected a note of unnecessary shyness in the German youth.
+
+To her surprise Bauer burst out laughing.
+
+"I beg pardon, Miss Gray, but that is just what Mr. Clifford said you
+would say if I tried to thank you, and I couldn't help laughing, it
+sounded so strange."
+
+"What else did Mr. Clifford say?" asked the lifesaver, looking up
+quickly at Bauer.
+
+Bauer was so taken back he couldn't reply. Miss Gray laughed, the most
+jolly, contagious laugh Bauer had ever heard.
+
+"Never mind. But isn't Mr. Clifford a character? He's one of the rarest
+fellows you ever saw. The most self sacrificing and self forgetful man I
+ever knew. And the bravest. I wish you could have seen him in that
+tangle with Tracker and the horses. I never expected he would get out
+alive. Did he tell you about it?"
+
+"He told me about you. How you------"
+
+"Had to strike you in the face? It seems dreadful, doesn't it? But I had
+to or you would have drowned both of us. You'll forgive that, won't
+you?"
+
+"Forgive?" murmured Bauer.
+
+"Because you see the Little Colorado is one of the most treacherous
+streams in the world. It's full of sink holes and they make eddies and
+whirlpools and when it's in flood as that day, it's carrying down all
+sorts of drift stuff and you are liable to get hit and pulled down.
+Well, Mr. Clifford went clear under twice, carried down by getting
+caught between the fork branch of an old water log. All the time he was
+pulling at Tracker and cutting away with his knife at the harness. If he
+hadn't cut the harness just in time, I couldn't have got you out, for
+you were caught around the feet with the lines. I suppose you got
+tangled in them when you fell over. We had a serious time getting Mr.
+Clifford back to consciousness. So if you are going to thank anyone it
+is Mr. Clifford who deserves most of it. I simply towed you to the bank
+after he had cut you loose."
+
+"Then I owe my life to both of you. That makes you doubly my friends.
+You do not know how much it means to me."
+
+"Consider everything said," interrupted Miss Gray with a cheery tone,
+"and of course you will excuse me for pulling your hair?"
+
+"Pulling my hair," murmured Bauer.
+
+"It couldn't be helped. Say no more. Oh, I want to tell you how lucky
+you are a German. I run across some hard places in Goethe's Hermann und
+Dorothea. Will you help me out with the translation?"
+
+"Indeed I will, Miss Gray."
+
+"You will have to do it in payment for saving you," she said lightly.
+And then with a change of manner--"How little we know the real value of
+life. Of any life. Now, that little girl Ansa. Come, Ansa, come here a
+minute."
+
+Ansa, a six year old, came at once and stood by Miss Gray, looking up at
+her out of the blackest eyes. The American turned the little Indian face
+towards Bauer. "Look!" she said passionately. "Look at one of my beloved
+ones! Is she not entitled to a full womanhood redeemed and developed by
+Christ? Has any living being a right to deny her that boon? Can America
+call itself Christian and go on refusing the water of life to these lost
+lambs of the desert?"
+
+She seemed to forget Bauer's presence as she swept her arms about the
+child and enveloped it in a comprehensive enfolding of salvation as if
+by that act she would compel life abundantly for a soul that otherwise
+would never know it. Bauer had never seen anything like it and he was
+almost bewildered by it. He could not accustom himself to the sight of
+this talented, educated, cultured young woman giving her life to the
+hard, uncouth, repulsive surroundings. There were whole volumes of life
+that Felix Bauer had never opened, to say nothing of whole volumes he
+had never known to be in existence.
+
+After a short silence, Miss Gray said softly, "You know the Douglas
+family? They are great friends of us here at the mission. We want them
+to come out here some time. Do you know Helen Douglas? She and I were
+together one year at Manitou. She is a lovely girl."
+
+"Yes," said Bauer. At that moment a call came from the mission house for
+Miss Gray and she rose to go.
+
+"Don't forget the Goethe when you're strong enough. Isn't it fine you're
+getting well so fast?"
+
+She nodded a good-bye to him and left him to dwell over their little
+talk, but most of all he recurred again and again to the sight of her
+with her arms about the child, kneeling on the sand and looking off to
+the east, to that far east that might, if it would, with its opulence,
+save life, instead of waste it.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Masters came back from Tuba two days after and Bauer found
+them all that Clifford had said. Never in all his life had the lonely
+student been so petted and surrounded by friendship. He grew strong with
+amazing rapidity. Clifford joked him about his appetite and Masters
+threatened to raise his board bill.
+
+One evening as Clifford and Peshlekietsetti were sitting by the hogan
+and Bauer was between them, Masters came down from the Mission waving a
+letter.
+
+"Listen to this! Douglas and his wife, daughter and oldest son are
+coming to pay us a visit first of August. Isn't that jolly! We'll plan a
+trip to Oraibi. It's their turn for the snake dance. I haven't seen
+Douglas since we graduated from Phillips Andover. It's fine!"
+
+Bauer was excited over the prospect.
+
+"When will they be here?"
+
+"First of August. In about three weeks now. We'll all go together.
+You'll be strong enough by that time. Mrs. Masters needs a little
+vacation. We'll leave someone in charge here and go and play a little."
+
+Masters was as pleased as a child. Later on, after the papers had come
+in from Flagstaff, he announced that there were two parties from New
+York and one from Pittsburgh, going to cross up to Oraibi to see the
+snake dance from Canyon Diablo. "The Van Shaws are listed. You remember,
+Miss Gray. Old friends of yours, aren't they?"
+
+Miss Gray looked annoyed. The first time Bauer had ever seen such a look
+on her face. She answered, however, cheerfully enough, "The Van Shaws
+are relatives of mother's." Masters did not ask anything more and Bauer
+did not dwell on the incident. That night he lay watching the stars
+through the hogan door. Life was meaning so much to him now. But could
+he bear to see too much of Helen Douglas in this desert land? He was
+troubled over the question and its unsettled answer.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+IT was an hour before sunrise at Tolchaco and Bauer had awakened from a
+restful sleep and from the place where he lay in the Council Hogan he
+noted with pure enjoyment the splendid colour of the sky framed in the
+opening, the exquisite blending from the pearly grey into the
+unpaintable, soft moving colours that he had looked at with growing awe
+during many wonderful mornings in July. He could not remove the
+impression that it was God's hand that moved over the sky, painting with
+an art that man's cheap imitation could never approach even in the
+faintest degree.
+
+It was the morning of the day they were all to start for Oraibi to see
+the snake dance which was to be given in three or four days according to
+announcements sent out by the runners. The Douglases had come as they
+had planned and had been visiting at the mission now for two weeks. Mr.
+and Mrs. Douglas were delighted with what they saw and heard of the
+mission work. Walter had made a horseback trip to the Grand Canyon
+through the solemn dry pine forest from Flagstaff and had returned to
+Tolchaco in time to join the party for Oraibi. Helen had been received
+at once as a favourite by all the mission people, had renewed her
+acquaintance with Miss Gray, and had shown herself friendly, yet not too
+friendly, with Bauer, who had steadily gained in strength and was
+looking forward with great anticipation, as they all were, to the Oraibi
+trip.
+
+He lay there contentedly musing in his deliberate way, for he mused as
+slowly as he spoke, when he was roused by a voice that came with clear
+accents across the 'dobe flats. He had heard it often in the early
+morning, but the sound of it never ceased to create in him a wondering
+awe and more or less bewilderment to reconcile his first thought of
+Elijah Clifford with other impressions that came on later. For it was
+Clifford's voice quietly speaking, yet in such distinct fashion that,
+although he was kneeling out on the edge of the 'dobe flats, what he
+said was plainly heard by Bauer where he lay and unless he had covered
+his ears he could not avoid catching the words.
+
+"O Thou Dayspring from on high, what a glorious world we live in!
+Forgive us that we shut our eyes to its beauty and close our ears to its
+music. I thank you, God, for a good night's sleep and a good morning's
+wakening. Help all of us to make it a good day for one another. We think
+so much of ourselves, of our body's comfort, and what we shall eat and
+drink and be clothed withal that sometimes a whole day has gone and we
+no nearer the Kingdom. We've lost our way in the desert and the water
+all gone. We are going to start out to-day to see these poor creatures
+of yours go through their ancient prayer for rain. Forgive them, good
+God. How should they know any better. No one ever told them of a better
+way. And there's old Touchiniteel, poor old savage. I would give
+anything, most anything, to see him brought into the fold. Is he too old
+to be saved, Lord Jesus? Can't you save him? It's not easy, I know, but
+we aren't asking you to do easy things out here. Most of them are hard,
+but don't you like to do hard things? Isn't that what being God means?
+And Peshlekietsetti--he's another, I want to see him saved. And old
+Begwoettin. You know how the old man never told a lie in his life. And
+he loves his grandchildren. Why, he would die in a minute for Ansa and
+Riba. He can't be so very bad. Somehow I can't think of his being lost.
+He isn't half so bad as Jake Rambeau, the trader. And Jake's had a high
+school education and calls himself civilised.
+
+"We are all in need of the Spirit's presence to-day. I want more of the
+presence. My heart longs to walk with the Master to-day. If the Master
+will be gentle with me as he was with Peter two or three times when he
+didn't deserve it, I would be glad. O Master, tell me your will. I need
+you so much, so much------"
+
+And then the sound of the voice trailed off into a murmur
+indistinguishable to Bauer from where he lay. But he knew that Elijah
+Clifford had thrown himself full length on the ground and was pleading
+in his own way for the Divine presence, for victory over himself and
+triumph for the Kingdom in that desert, for once in the dawn when he had
+heard his voice, Bauer had poked a hole through the dirt over the wall
+of the hogan and for one moment, during which he felt almost ashamed for
+looking, he had seen Clifford prostrate himself thus and lie there
+outstretched for how long, he did not know. It did not seem right to him
+to look for more than a minute.
+
+After a silence of about half an hour, during which Bauer had risen,
+Clifford appeared in the doorway of the hogan with his usual cheerful
+"Good-morning; Sehr gut?"
+
+"Ja, sehr gut," replied Bauer. "When do we start?"
+
+"Right after breakfast."
+
+"How long will it take us to make the trip to Oraibi?"
+
+"Oh, it depends on how often we lose the way. May take two days, may
+take three."
+
+"Have you been there before?"
+
+"Seen the snake dance five times."
+
+"Is it as wonderful as they say?"
+
+"Is it? I am just as much interested in it now as I was the first time.
+But the poor devils! Half of 'em don't know what their rigamarole means.
+And Mr. Masters thinks the government ought to put an end to it. Last
+time there were over a hundred tourists came up from all over the
+country and turned Oraibi into a sort of bargain day. The dance confirms
+'em in their superstitions. But no mistake it's a wonderful sight to be
+going on in the U. S."
+
+"Mr. Masters said several parties were going to come this year from
+Pittsburgh and New York."
+
+"Yes. The Van Shaws are among them. I understood Miss Douglas to tell
+Miss Gray that one of these Van Shaws was in the same school with her
+brother and you. Do you know him?"
+
+"Yes--I know who he is," said Bauer, slower than usual. He could not
+forget the incident that occurred in Walter's room when Van Shaw had
+started to relate an objectionable story and Walter had prevented him
+from telling it. Van Shaw's general reputation for fast and questionable
+habits corresponded with this incident and Bauer felt annoyed at the
+possibility of a chance meeting with his party.
+
+But in the bustle of preparation for the journey, everything else was
+soon forgotten except the immediate interest. Bauer was not expected to
+do anything except get his own few travelling necessities together. But
+he quietly helped Mrs. Masters in a number of ways and she afterwards
+told Clifford that the laconic German student was the most remarkable
+young man she ever knew to anticipate a want and do a thing right the
+first time.
+
+"Just the opposite of me," said Clifford. "I have to do a thing twice
+anyway to make sure, like the doctor in our old town in Vermont, who
+used to say that if he didn't kill with the first operation he was dead
+sure to cure with the next."
+
+When the chuck wagons were all ready Bauer found to his pleasure that he
+was assigned to the light platform spring wagon in which Esther and
+Helen, together with Clifford and Mrs. Masters, were going. Mr. Masters,
+Miss Gray, Walter and Miss Clifford were assigned to one of the chuck
+wagons and Peshlekietsetti with two of the older pupils in the school
+and one of the younger Indians had charge of a third wagon containing
+the tents and the water.
+
+The party was on the way shortly after sunrise and reached the place of
+the ford in about an hour. The river was very low and as the wagons went
+over on the rock ledge, only a few inches of water were trickling
+through the wheels.
+
+"You wouldn't believe, would you, Miss Douglas, that Mr. Bauer and I had
+a good swim right about here a few weeks ago?"
+
+"Oh, tell me about that," cried Helen, who with all the rest of the
+visitors had of course heard of Bauer's rescue, and in her heart was
+envious of Miss Gray for her physical prowess. But she had never been
+able to prevail on her to give any but the most unsatisfactory account
+of the rescue.
+
+So Clifford launched into a glowing account of the affair, obliterating
+himself entirely and making it seem that Miss Gray was the only person
+present, so that Bauer had to give Helen the full account as near as he
+could of Clifford's part in the rescue.
+
+"It's a wonderful land! I wish such things would happen in Milton! And,
+oh, look at those colours! Was anything ever like them!" Helen exclaimed
+as the wagons came up out of the river bed and in full view of the
+painted desert as it stretched out in its weird, fascinating beauty.
+"Oh, I just can't contain it all!"
+
+"You remind me," said Clifford who was driving, and now gave the horses
+a free rein on a hard 'dobe stretch, "of a young lady who was writing
+letters home from her first trip abroad for the use of the county paper.
+She said, when she was in Venice, 'Last night I lay in a gondola in the
+Grand Canal, drinking it all in, and life never seemed so full before.'"
+Clifford winked at Bauer who was on the front seat with him, and Helen,
+who was not yet used to Elijah Clifford's ways, at first turned red and
+looked vexed, but afterwards laughed with the rest.
+
+"Well, if your young lady was here she would have to say the same thing
+about all this. I never had any thought that a desert was like this. I
+supposed it was just nothing but sand spread out on a flat surface. But
+look at those flowers! Did you ever see anything more delicate for
+colour and form?"
+
+"Most people think that way about the desert," said Clifford. "There are
+more than sixty distinct varieties of vegetation this side of the river
+between here and Red Stone Tank. Mr. Bauer can tell you the names of
+some of 'em. He has begun to make a collection."
+
+Bauer modestly replied in answer to a question from Helen that he had
+classified only a few distinct species that he had found in his short
+strolls from the Mission. He had the book with his things at Tolchaco
+and would show it to her when they came back.
+
+"I didn't know you cared for Botany," said Helen a little flippantly. "I
+supposed you were all absorbed in your inventions."
+
+Bauer's face changed colour slightly.
+
+"I have always enjoyed God's earth," he said. "Anything that grows is
+always more wonderful than anything that has to be made."
+
+"I should think this would be a good place to try your incubator, it's
+so hot," said Helen, feeling that she had made a foolish remark, but
+letting it go rather than try to apologise to Bauer for her poor
+judgment of him.
+
+"Oh, say, tell us about that incubator," said Clifford. "Must be a lot
+of money in a thing like that. I believe we could use some of 'em out
+here to good advantage and make something for the Mission. There's a
+great demand for broilers at Flagstaff, and the Harvey eating houses
+would give us big money for any quantity of either eggs or young
+chickens. If we could only educate 'em to live on sand and cactus.
+Trouble is, feed is so high and we're so used to eating up everything,
+that there ain't anything left over from meals, to give to chickens. I
+suppose there ain't any way to fatten chickens without feeding 'em."
+
+When Clifford spoke of Bauer's invention as a money maker, Helen was
+reminded again of what she had almost forgotten, that Bauer had lost the
+largest part of his profits from the sale of the patent rights.
+
+Walter had written home about Bauer's father returning a part of what he
+had stolen, and of Bauer's quiet acceptance of the event. Helen, as she
+caught the look on his face whenever he partly turned about to speak to
+those on the seat behind, could not help feeling a real interest in
+him----if only he were not so plain looking, and so serious and above
+all, so poor, and so destined to remain poor. No; she shut her eyes,
+opened them again, looked at Bauer pensively, shook her head as if in
+answer to a question, and then with a feeling of determination turned
+her attention to the remarkable land through which the party was
+travelling.
+
+The sky was cloudless. The heat was dry and penetrating, and as the
+forenoon wore away everyone grew thirsty. The cloth covered canteens
+were called for often. At noon the wagons drew together and camped for
+dinner. Two of the wagons were driven up side by side about ten feet
+apart and the horses unhitched and hobbled. A spare canvas was drawn
+over the tops of the two wagons to make shade for the dinner party.
+Clifford, who acted as cook on camping out occasions, dug a hole in the
+sand, filled it with dowegie roots and started his fire and in what
+seemed an incredibly short time to the visitors from Milton a hearty
+meal was ready. The Indians and their helpers squatted around on rugs
+within the circle, Mr. Masters asked grace in a delightful tone of
+genuine thanksgiving and added a few words in Navajo in which
+Peshlekietsetti and the young Indians joined.
+
+"This what I call the real thing," said Paul, as he helped himself to
+his fourth sandwich and passed his cup for the third time for coffee.
+
+"Yes, these are real sandwiches all right," said Clifford as he turned
+over some pancakes which were cooking on a flat stone. "Anyone else want
+a hot one made by the slab artist?"
+
+Walter expressed a desire for one and politely handed it over to Miss
+Gray. Clifford looked at him a moment and then at Miss Gray, who was
+smiling her thanks.
+
+"How's the batter?" he said to Walter.
+
+"Good," said Walter who seemed in unusual spirits. "It's equal to a home
+run with the bases all full."
+
+"Do you think it needs to be any thicker?"
+
+"No. It's thick enough," said Walter with his eyes on Miss Gray.
+
+"Yes, what did I tell you," muttered Clifford to Bauer when an hour
+later he and the German student were alone and out of ear shot from the
+rest of the campers. Bauer had offered to help Clifford wash the dishes
+at a water hole some hundred yards from the camp. "What did I tell you?
+It's just as I said. Miss Gray has 'em all going. Cowboys, Indian
+traders, missionaries, visitors, everybody. Now it's your friend
+Douglas. He's a goner so soon. You watch when the wagons load up if he
+don't manage to sit with Miss Gray. He's lost and there's no use sending
+out an expedition to find him. He doesn't want to be found. And the
+mystery of it is Miss Gray never tries. She just simply looks at you and
+it's all over."
+
+Bauer was amused and perplexed at Clifford's absolutely frank
+confidence. There was nothing flippant about it either. It was the
+simple expression of a nature that had nothing to conceal. There was not
+even a hint of gossip about it, nor of ill nature. In a land where there
+were no newspapers, telegraphs, telephones, railroads, or neighbours, it
+seemed like the expression of a confidence which had in it neither
+malice nor impertinent coarseness. And yet Bauer was puzzled to know
+what Clifford's real feeling was towards Miss Gray even after Clifford's
+own open statement made to him that day while they were sitting on the
+old cottonwood by the river.
+
+When the party started on again after a two hours' rest, Clifford nudged
+Bauer to call attention to the fact that Walter and Miss Gray were in
+the back seat of the chuck wagon in front of them. But he never
+mentioned the matter again during the day, and until they reached the
+night camping place he was alive with stories and information about the
+desert, the Indians, the habits of the horses, the work of the Mission
+and the coming snake dance.
+
+The place chosen for the first night's camp was the Red Stone Tanks.
+This consisted of a pool of tepid water and a few rocks, from the
+crevices of which a straggling fringe of desert cedars was trying to
+grow.
+
+Camp was made here by pitching one of the big tents for the women. A big
+fire of roots was started after the supper had been eaten, and when they
+were all seated in the circle about the fire, Mr. Masters began a story.
+
+Gradually as he went on with the old, old story of the lost sheep,
+figures stole up around the fire. Paul, who with Esther and all the rest
+was simply fascinated with the entire surroundings, although he did not
+understand a word Masters was speaking, was startled as he looked around
+and saw a dozen dark faces of young men and boys. They had risen out of
+the desert barrenness and gloom, the sudden twilight, and silently
+appeared. When the camp was chosen there was not a hogan or a living
+creature anywhere in sight. But all of these quiet visitors knew that
+the mission party was on the way to Oraibi and some of them had been
+riding all day to meet Mr. and Mrs. Masters at this point.
+
+When the story was finished, Miss Gray started a hymn, "The Ninety and
+Nine." She sang with a low soft voice, almost talking the words, but old
+Peshlekietsetti sitting by Mr. Clifford bent over his knees gravely
+watching the singer's face and listening intently for every word, and
+when she was through, he asked a question of Mr. Masters.
+
+"The old man wants to know," said Masters after one or two more
+questions had been asked, "how it happened that the sheep got lost and
+if it was its own fault or the fault of someone who should have been
+looking after it. That isn't a bad question to come from the old fellow.
+His theology isn't half so much at fault as that of some theological
+seminary professors I know, who teach that sin is nothing but a disease
+and that nobody in particular is to blame for it. If he had to live out
+here awhile instead of in his little upholstered study at the seminary,
+he would change his definition."
+
+The evening was spent about the fire with songs and conversation,
+largely between Paul and Mr. Masters concerning the Navajo
+characteristics. The last thing Bauer could remember as he lay under his
+rug looking up at the stars, was the sight of old Peshlekietsetti
+throwing a handful of dry roots on the fire as he sat bowed over his
+knees, the fire flame gleaming red on his grave and dignified face.
+
+He wakened early, as he had of late been doing, and sat up, noting the
+sleeping figures in a circle about the ashes of the fire, and as his
+look travelled on past them he noted out by the edge of the Black Gorge
+through which they were to travel that day, a solitary figure sitting on
+one of the curious rocks that framed a sort of gateway to the diminutive
+canyon. Even at that distance he could distinguish the form of Elijah
+Clifford, although he had already noticed that Clifford's rug and rubber
+blanket, which had been spread out by his own, had been folded up and
+tied ready for the day's trip.
+
+Before the rest of the sleepers had stirred, Clifford came back to the
+spot and began with the noiseless rapidity of an Indian to build the
+fire in the sand preparatory to the breakfast, talking in a soft voice
+to Bauer, as if Bauer had asked him a question, although Bauer had not
+said a word except "Good-morning," when Clifford cheerfully greeted him.
+
+"You see, I used to work on a daily paper in Kansas City before I was
+converted and it seems to me now that I spend most of my time trying to
+catch up with the day after to-morrow. I never had any leisure, never
+went to church, never opened a Bible and never talked with myself. Since
+I came out here I've had the time of my life in not only talking with
+myself but------" He glanced at Bauer wistfully as he put some stones
+around the hole and set his coffee pot down on the sand, "but I never
+saw such a place as a desert to find God. It seems as if this was the
+place to find him. You know Moses and Elijah and David and Paul and John
+and lots of men found God in the wilderness. I suppose you could find
+him while working for a daily paper, but He didn't seem to have much to
+do with the one I was on. At any rate I never found Him there. That's
+the reason I like to get up early. There's a time in the morning between
+four and five out here, when it appears to me God has more time to tend
+to individuals. Most everybody is asleep soundest about that time and He
+can pay attention better to the comparatively few folks that don't need
+so much rest."--Elijah said it as if to apologise for the habits of the
+rest of the party and Bauer could not help smiling at his note of
+evident haste not to take too much credit to himself for early rising.
+"I thought maybe you might kind of wonder at my ways, and think maybe I
+got up to write poetry or some such stuff. I believe you understand,
+eh?"
+
+"I believe I do," said Bauer gravely. "And I appreciate your confidence.
+I know what it means to try to find God in a crowd. I think that is one
+reason Jesus had to leave the multitude and go out into the desert
+places."
+
+"Yes," said Clifford, sitting down on the sand and putting his coffee
+pot on a stone. "I didn't mention Him. I thought you would remember that
+yourself."
+
+This little glimpse into Elijah Clifford's personality did Bauer a world
+of good and strengthened a growing liking for him which led in the
+process of time, as this story goes on, to some very important results
+in Bauer's life.
+
+The day promised to be unusually hot and it was Masters's plan to get
+through the Black Gorge canyon early, as it was famous for its stifling
+heat and dust storms later in the day. So camp was broken immediately
+after breakfast and the wagons were soon loaded with the bedding and
+dishes and the journey resumed in the same order, so far as the
+travellers were concerned, as before. Mr. Masters, who knew the trail at
+the other end of the gorge better than anyone else, went first with Mrs.
+Masters, Miss Clifford, Miss Gray and Walter and Clifford with Mr.
+Douglas, Mrs. Douglas, Helen, and Bauer followed, Peshlekietsetti and
+the heavy wagon trailing along in the rear.
+
+Just as they were entering the Gorge, Clifford turned and looked back
+towards the camp. Out across the Red Rock elevation he pointed out three
+black specks. Looking at them through the mission field glass, a former
+gift from Mr. Douglas, he announced them to be probably three wagons
+with tourists from Canyon Diablo bound for the snake dance.
+
+"May be your friend from Pittsburgh, Van Shaw, is in that outfit," he
+said to Bauer.
+
+Bauer did not reply. He hoped Van Shaw would not meet Walter or any of
+their party. There was no reason why he should, but every time he
+thought of Van Shaw he felt uncomfortable, something in him rose up
+nearest to a feeling of hate and disgust he had ever known.
+
+Clifford faced around and resumed the driving. He noted as he turned
+into the opening that Peshlekietsetti had stopped just outside to strap
+on one of the water barrels more securely, but seeing that he did not
+ask for any help he drove on into the Gorge.
+
+The Gorge was weirdly irregular and the windings of the road were so
+many that very soon the wagons were all separated from view of one
+another.
+
+In this volcanic land one could not account for the fantastic and even
+monstrous shapes of cliff and ledge and overhanging rock masses without
+calling up some gigantic upheaval of all nature's vast play of forces;
+earthquakes, fire, volcano, flood, wind, sand spouts of enormous height
+and velocity, one after the other all these elemental storms must have
+rocked and heaved and rent and tortured the earth and after all had
+passed by, the hurricane of volcanic fire and missiles must have
+scattered the debris of high mountains twisted into lumps of matter,
+varying in size from a sky scraper to a comma.
+
+It began and ended abruptly, as if in a freak of the upheaval a tornado
+had picked up the end of a canyon somewhere, turned it over several times
+in transit and finally dropped it bottom side up on the desert, breaking
+it open when it fell and letting the fragments bump around like the
+pounded rock in a concrete mixer.
+
+In among these boulders Elijah Clifford guided the team, exercising all
+his skill, for one of the horses was partly mustang, full of unused
+energy, and Mr. Masters had chosen the trip to Oraibi to give the animal
+some necessary training, trusting in Clifford's love of horses and his
+special characteristic of carefulness to avoid any accidents. And all
+would have gone well if the unforeseen and unavoidable had not occurred.
+
+They were almost out of the gorge and Clifford had started to reply to a
+question of Paul's concerning the nature of the rocks which were
+different in colour on one side of the canyon from the other, when the
+mustang shied in a perfectly excusable manner at a cedar stump which
+hung out from a ledge so close that it almost scraped the frightened
+animal. Before Clifford could get the team back into the narrow road the
+front wheel struck a big stone. The jolt flung the pole with a jerk
+against the mustang. He reared up and slewed around, unhitching one of
+his tugs. Even then Clifford might have saved the situation if one of
+the reins had not broken. But when that snapped it was a hopeless task.
+Before any of the party knew what to do the now maddened team was
+thrashing up the gorge. The result was only a question of the law, if
+there is any, of accidents. Nobody ever knew just what did happen in
+detail. Paul and Esther said afterwards that they jumped, although they
+had always said they never would jump out of a runaway wagon. Helen
+clung terrified to her seat until the hind wheel on her side of the
+wagon was splintered and the wagon box fell down and she found herself
+flung up against the bank. Clifford jumped for one of the horse's backs,
+hoping to stop them by reaching their bridles, but his foot caught on
+the dashboard and he fell, just missing the wheels as he rolled down the
+trail. Bauer was the only one to remain in the wagon. Just as Clifford
+made his unsuccessful leap the tongue snapped. The horses tore
+themselves loose from the wrecked wagon and swept in a frenzy of fear
+through the gorge, banging the fragments of tongue, whiffletrees and
+harness about them, and what was left of the wagon came to a stop
+between two big boulders, with Bauer clinging to the front seat with
+white strained face wondering if the rest of them were all killed.
+
+Clifford picked himself up and came limping along to where Paul and
+Esther were sitting. He was all right himself excepting a few minor
+bruises and was overjoyed to find that Mr. and Mrs. Douglas had escaped
+serious injury. But when the three of them came to Helen they found her
+almost in a swoon.
+
+"I think I sprained my ankle," she said with a faint attempt at a
+smile.
+
+"Thank God we are not all killed!" exclaimed Esther, but before she
+could say another word Helen had fainted. Her father and mother were
+busy over her, Bauer had run up with a water canteen and Clifford was
+ruefully regarding the wreck of the wagon when the sound of wheels was
+heard.
+
+"There's Peshlekietsetti," he said. "We'll have to put Miss Helen in the
+chuck wagon. But how on earth are we going to get to Oraibi now?"
+
+A large wagon turned the bend and the driver pulled up sharply. It was
+not Peshlekietsetti, but the tourist party from Canyon Diablo. Bauer, as
+he anxiously stood by Mrs. Douglas trying to restore Helen, was
+conscious that a group of astonished and interested tourists had climbed
+down from the wagon and had come up to the scene of the accident. As he
+looked up he saw Van Shaw and heard him say, "Why, hello, Bauer! Didn't
+expect to see you here. Had bad accident, haven't you? Anything we can
+do to help?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+"IT'S very kind of you, and------" Mr. Douglas began. It is astonishing
+how commonplace most people are in moments of accident. Paul had never
+seen Van Shaw, did not know him in the least and simply saw a
+good-looking young man dressed in a serviceable camping suit, who had
+appeared at a moment when help of some kind was imperatively needed.
+"You seem to be acquainted, Felix. One of your classmates at Burrton?
+Oh, you're the Pittsburgh party?"
+
+Felix hesitated and Van Shaw saved him the trouble of an introduction.
+
+"Yes, I'm Van Shaw, you know. Our outfit can take care of everything
+without any trouble. Mr. Douglas of Milton? You're with the Tolchaco
+party, aren't you? Yes, we'll be glad to be of service."
+
+Van Shaw's glance travelled to Helen, who after a brave effort to keep
+from fainting again, had finally succumbed and lay back against the
+bank. Her mother was calm, and although this was the first time in all
+Helen's life that she had ever shown any such physical yielding to pain,
+Esther accepted the situation, and with Paul's help did the only thing
+obvious and soon had the girl resting, after the fainting spell, in one
+of the chuck wagons belonging to Van Shaw's party.
+
+After that, events seemed to follow in a natural sequence, that could
+not reasonably have occurred in any other way. The frightened horses
+soon overtook and ran into the wagon in front. Masters and Walter caught
+them and as soon as possible came running back up the gorge, panting and
+fearful. Their surprise and relief when they learned that no one was
+seriously injured were great. The broken wagon was, however, such a
+wreck, that not even Elijah Clifford's ingenuity could repair it
+sufficiently for use, and with the exception of a few serviceable
+pieces, it was left behind. The two parties brought together by the
+quick process of accident, at last continued the journey in company, but
+for Felix Bauer a cloud had come up over the clear sky of his pleasure.
+He had never been able to endure Van Shaw, and it was exasperating to
+him and annoying to Walter to be under any obligations to one who, back
+in the old school, had moved in another circle and lived according to
+other moral codes.
+
+Van Shaw on meeting Walter had simply said, "Hello, Douglas! Great place
+this old desert, hey?" He did not wait for Walter to say anything but
+rattled on. "This snake dance we're going to is said to be a corker.
+It's a beastly old distance to come to see it. I don't mind. But the
+camp grub gets the mater pretty bad."
+
+The other members in the Pittsburgh party were Van Shaw's mother, just
+referred to as "mater," his aunt, a Mrs. Waldron, two young men, friends
+of Van Shaw, Mrs. Waldron's two nieces, and a cook and three drivers.
+They had fitted out at Canyon Diablo and crossed the Little Colorado at
+the upper ford, several hours after the Tolchaco party had passed, but
+owing to better equipment in the matter of horses and wagons they had
+overtaken the latter just as Touchiniteel and his two Indians had
+entered the gorge.
+
+By noon the wagons were all out of the gorge and in full view of the
+Crested Buttes. Helen was resting as well as could be expected but was
+evidently in great pain. Masters, who was something of a doctor and
+surgeon, did the best he could with the simple remedies he carried, but
+declared the sprain to be a very serious one, and at a little
+consultation held at lunch time, the feasibility of abandoning the trip
+and turning back to Tolchaco on account of Helen's condition was
+discussed.
+
+When Helen heard of it she emphatically objected.
+
+"I won't listen to such a thing. I'm very comfortable. I don't want the
+rest of you to lose the enjoyment of the trip on my account. The only
+thing that worries me is the fear I am causing trouble to these other
+people."
+
+The "other people," represented by Van Shaw and the young men friends,
+were near the chuck wagon when Helen made this last remark. Van Shaw
+hastened to assure her that no one was put out in the least by her
+presence there.
+
+"I don't feel sure of that. It seems to me that more than one person
+must have been 'put out' of here when I was put in. I take up a great
+deal of room and I am sure there were some seats in this wagon."
+
+Van Shaw protested that his party had two extra saddle horses and that
+as for himself he preferred to walk. He needed the exercise.
+
+The other young men joined in gallantly. Miss Douglas was free to ride
+in any or all of the wagons as long as she chose.
+
+Helen smiled at all of them impartially and expressed her thanks to Van
+Shaw in particular. Felix Bauer who with Walter was standing in the
+group with the rest during this little conversation, wondered for the
+first time in his life if Helen Douglas was a coquette. If she knew Van
+Shaw as well as he and Walter knew him would she smile so sweetly at
+him, and on such brief acquaintance? To Felix Bauer the whole thing was
+incomprehensible. Even allowing something for the swiftness with which
+acquaintances can be made in the desert during a camping experience,
+especially under circumstances favoured by such an accident as had
+occurred, it still was not seemly that a girl like Helen Douglas should
+even in the slightest degree encourage the attention of fellows like Van
+Shaw.
+
+Felix was so disturbed by his own feelings over the affair that during
+the whole of the afternoon he avoided the wagon where Helen was. Once,
+however, as he looked back, to his indignant surprise he noted Van Shaw
+driving the team and turning about from time to time as if to converse
+with Helen, who was lying on a camp bed under the canopy cover which had
+been pulled back, on account of the heat, so as to allow Helen a glance
+now and then of some passing point of interest. Once Felix was sure he
+heard her laugh at some remark made by Van Shaw in comment perhaps on
+Touchiniteel's curious sailor made costume.
+
+As soon as he could get a chance to speak to Walter, Felix gave voice to
+his feelings, for the time being entirely forgetful of the very
+important fact that up to this time he had never by word or look
+betrayed to Walter his feeling for his sister.
+
+"Do you see that?" he spoke to Walter as they walked along together a
+little distance from the wagons. The men had nearly all got down to walk
+over a piece of particularly hard going for the teams.
+
+Walter looked over in the direction of Helen where Bauer was looking as
+he spoke, and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Yes, but what of it?"
+
+"You know Van Shaw?"
+
+"Well, I don't like it, of course, but Helen is old enough to look out
+for herself."
+
+"Do you mean that you are willing to have her become friendly with him?"
+said Felix, his simple clean mind horrified at the apparent indifference
+of Walter to Van Shaw's general looseness of moral habits as they knew
+him in Burrton.
+
+"Well, what can I do?" said Walter with some show of irritation. "Do you
+want me to go back there, politely ask Van Shaw to stop the team, and
+say to Helen in his hearing: 'Dear sister, the young man who is amusing
+you so finely this afternoon is the son of the greatest and most
+notorious railroad wrecker in America. He himself is known in the school
+at Burrton as the fastest and most vulgar youth in the institution. He
+drinks, he gambles, he is famous for the number of indecent stories he
+can tell, he has his rooms adorned with pictures of variety actresses,
+he has no high aims in life and never earned a cent since he was born,
+although he spends several thousands of dollars every year which his
+father makes for him by ruining other people. In short, sister, he is
+the last young man in all the universe with whom I, your brother, would
+desire you to become acquainted. Therefore, I am going to ask Mr. Van
+Shaw to wait until with the help of Mr. Bauer who knows all these facts
+about Mr. Van Shaw as well as I do, we transfer you from this wagon to
+one of ours, although owing to our comparative poverty as measured by
+this Pittsburgh outfit our wagons are not at all fitted to carry
+beautiful young ladies who have sustained severe ankle sprains.' Do you
+want me to go over to Van Shaw and get off a speech like that in order
+to save Helen?"
+
+Bauer stared at Walter in solemn surprise. Then to Walter's surprise he
+said curtly:
+
+"Every word of it is true."
+
+"Yes, but you can't always say everything that's true. I wish for the
+life of me that Van Shaw had never put in an appearance. It has spoiled
+the trip for me. Besides, you never can tell what a girl will do.
+They're all romantic and above all, unreasonable. Van Shaw is good
+looking and he's got money coming to him like the sand of this desert.
+And I don't forget a story Clifford was telling us this morning. It was
+about some American girl very much like Helen, in a book, who said to
+another girl that all she wanted of a husband in New York was a man to
+go down town in the morning to earn enough money for her to spend up
+town in the afternoon."
+
+"You don't mean to say that your sister has any such ambition as that,
+do you?" asked Felix even slower than usual.
+
+Walter looked at him curiously.
+
+"You don't know Helen very well. She is very ambitious, and she has
+great respect for wealth. She thinks money can do most anything in this
+old world. There's no telling what Helen will do when it comes to
+marrying. I can't imagine her marrying a poor man."
+
+"I would rather see her married to Touchiniteel than to Van Shaw!" said
+Bauer with a savage outburst that accelerated his speech and changed his
+entire countenance.
+
+Walter looked at Felix again, with the same curious regard.
+
+"You seem to be a good deal disturbed over the matter, old man. What
+difference does it make to you whether Helen marries Van Shaw or
+Touchiniteel?"
+
+Bauer turned his face toward Walter with a look Walter never forgot.
+They were walking near one of the old ruins of an abandoned village.
+Pieces of broken pottery and grinders were littered over the ground.
+Felix motioned to Walter to go farther up into the mound where these
+ruins were scattered.
+
+"We can catch up with the teams. The folks will think we are looking for
+specimens," he said. Walter anticipated Bauer's story as he sat down by
+him and in the midst of an ancient cliff dwellers century old debris of
+a home, heard his chum's simple story. After it was told in Bauer's slow
+but in this case intense manner, Walter said:
+
+"I'm awfully sorry, old man; but I don't believe you stand a ghost of a
+chance with Helen."
+
+"I don't suppose I do," assented Bauer humbly. "But you can see now why
+I feel as I do and what it means to me to see a fellow like Van Shaw
+with her. It is not only torture to me. I think some one ought to tell
+her."
+
+"Tell her what?"
+
+"About Van Shaw. Such men have no business to make love to pure girls
+like Helen."
+
+Walter remonstrated.
+
+"It's absurd, Felix. He isn't making love to her. Nonsense."
+
+"He is!" said Bauer with a passionate burst that astonished Walter. "You
+do not know him as well as I do. I am acquainted with Van Shaw's history
+through the Raines-Bracken affair. You were not at Burrton when that
+happened. Nothing but the fear of losing some of old Van Shaw's legacies
+to the school prevented young Van Shaw's expulsion at the time. I can't
+go into the affair, Walter, but it gave me a loathing for Van Shaw that
+I never can overcome. It isn't because I feel holier than thou or
+anything like that; God knows I am in need of his great forgiveness; but
+it seems as wrong for us to leave your sister unacquainted with the real
+character of Van Shaw as it would to let her play with one of these
+rattlesnakes we are going to see in Oraibi the day after to-morrow, not
+knowing how deadly they were."
+
+"Who'll tell her? Will you?"
+
+"I? How can I do it. No. But it would seem quite the thing for you or
+your mother------"
+
+"Mother doesn't know him," Walter interrupted somewhat curtly. "I don't
+see how I can say anything," Walter went on, with the caution many
+school boys feel about telling on others. "I really believe Helen is
+capable of protecting herself. And one of the quickest ways to get a
+girl interested in a man is to hint that he is not as good as he might
+be."
+
+"That's your philosophy imbibed from your six best sellers," retorted
+Felix. Walter was a constant novel reader. "I am going to have a talk
+with your mother about the whole affair. She will know what to do."
+
+"Will you tell her how you feel about Helen?"
+
+Felix winced.
+
+"She knows already."
+
+"Oh, you have told her."
+
+"No, she knows without my telling."
+
+"Have you spoken to Helen?"
+
+The colour swept up over Bauer's face.
+
+"No, and I never will."
+
+"Does she know?" Walter persisted.
+
+"I looked at her once," faltered Bauer, and for the soul of him Walter
+could not help roaring out at him.
+
+As they rose to make their way to the wagons which had halted in a group
+to wait for them and others who had fallen behind, Walter smote Bauer on
+the back.
+
+"Courage, old man. The case is not all hopeless. If you have got as far
+as a look, that's progress. What did Helen do?"
+
+But Bauer drew into his reserve at this point and gravely refused to
+talk any more, and Walter did not venture to insist. Only, as they were
+going to their wagons Bauer simply said, "I shall tell your mother. It
+would not be right not to let her know."
+
+"I don't know what mother can do about it," Walter replied dubiously.
+
+"Mrs. Douglas is very wise." said Bauer. To that Walter made no answer,
+and they joined the rest of the party without further words.
+
+That night the two camps were pitched close together, and two fires
+burned like red specks in the holes dug for the sagebrush and cedar
+roots. The chuck wagon in which Helen had been riding was left standing
+close by the tent pitched for her mother and Mrs. Masters. She seemed
+unusually cheerful and in answer to many inquiries assured all that she
+was resting easily and was nearly free from pain.
+
+After the camp meal was over and the desert grey of the soft night had
+begun to wrap itself like an enveloping cloak about the two camps, as
+quietly and without warning of their presence natives of that weird
+tract of earth began to appear. When the camp was made there was not a
+hogan or any form of human habitation to be seen. But as Paul came back
+to the fire circle after helping Masters pitch the last of the tents he
+was astonished to see a dozen Indians, mostly young men, sitting on the
+sand close by. Masters spoke a word to them when he came up to the fire
+and one of the men answered briefly.
+
+"They have come all the way from Leupp," he said to Paul. "Walked the
+entire distance of sixty-seven miles since sunrise."
+
+"Do you know any of them?" Paul asked curiously.
+
+"Yes, I have met one of the young men at Shungapavi. They are all going
+up to see the snake dance. It's the only feature about the Hopi that
+appeals to them."
+
+Miss Gray began to sing; it seemed to Walter who was sitting on the
+Navajo blanket near her that he had never heard a voice of just that
+particular quality. It fitted into the surroundings wonderfully. The
+dusky faces with the inevitable head-cloth of red or white were intent
+on hers, and when the song ceased and Walter looked up and around he saw
+the members of the other camp had come over and were standing or sitting
+about. Among the faces that were most noticeable to Walter was Van
+Shaw's. He was standing almost directly opposite Miss Gray staring at
+her with a strange look as if he were in doubt of the reality of Miss
+Gray's presence in this group. It seemed to Walter that he was about to
+ask a question, but Masters, who at campfire was always intent on
+bringing his Gospel message to the miscellaneous audience he might not
+see again in many months, began to speak softly and affectionately.
+
+The visitors from the outside world, including the party from
+Pittsburgh, could not understand one word. It was not that that moved
+them. But Masters was gifted with a splendid voice in full control.
+After he had been speaking ten minutes the figures about the little fire
+crept closer up and narrowed the circle. Masters's face was eloquent.
+Tears rolled down his cheeks. His gestures were wide and conveyed tender
+invitation. He spoke only a few moments more and ended abruptly. Old
+Peshlekietsetti gently dropped a root of dowegie bush on the almost
+extinct fire. The coals burst into a new flame and the light flared up
+again, showing to Felix, Helen's wondering face framed in the opening
+fold of the wagon cover, while Mrs. Douglas close by her was listening
+with sympathetic attention deepened into reverent surprise when Elijah
+Clifford with his hands over his knees, his head bowed, prayed the
+evening prayer in a spirit that seemed to proclaim another man from the
+one they had known during the day. And then another hymn in which all
+were asked by Miss Gray to join. It all smote Felix with a feeling of
+wonder, it was so new and unusual to his experience. But to Masters and
+Miss Gray and Clifford it was the regular daily habit of their lives, as
+common and necessary to them as it was for the tourist crowd looking on
+to close the day's life with a heavy dinner of seven courses and bridge
+whist into the next morning. The last glimpse Walter had of Van Shaw as
+he moved off towards his own wagons was the look he cast at Miss Gray
+again and then transferred to the canvas that covered the chuck wagon
+where Helen and her mother sat talking over the strange events of the
+day and its strange ending.
+
+The next day was a severe experience for old desert travellers. The wind
+blew almost a gale. The sand drifted like snow and the mid day meal was
+taken standing, everyone eating as best he could, standing up, and
+making no attempt at the setting of a table or the formality of a
+regular meal.
+
+Late in the afternoon the grey rock of Oraibi showed through the
+whistling sand storm. The wagons halted a little while by the Oraibi
+Wash before making the last miles through the difficult sand hillocks at
+the foot of the cliff. And it was during this resting period that word
+came to Masters from one of the Hopis who had a corn field on the Wash
+that recent rains at Oraibi had so damaged the wagon trial leading to
+the top that it would be impossible to drive up. All visitors and
+tourists must walk up the foot trail.
+
+"That means that Helen can't get to the village. It will be a great
+disappointment," said Mrs. Douglas.
+
+It was on the tongue of Felix Bauer to suggest a plan for carrying Helen
+up the trail on one of the camp cots when Van Shaw struck in.
+
+"Pardon me, Mrs. Douglas, but it will be an easy thing to carry Miss
+Douglas up the trail on a camp cot. Four of us can do it easily. Just
+put some tent poles under the sides and let the two behind rest the
+poles on their shoulders and the two in front carry lower. In that way
+I'm sure we can get Miss Douglas to the top without any inconvenience to
+her. It would be a shame to come all this distance and eat all this dirt
+and miss the real thing after all."
+
+"I don't want to miss it, of course," Helen faltered, looking at the
+group of young men, Walter, Felix, Van Shaw and his two friends. "But
+I'm giving a lot of trouble and I'm afraid I'm a nuisance."
+
+"Then we will abate it by carrying you up there," said Van Shaw smiling,
+and Helen smiled back at him, to Felix Bauer's rage. The whole thing was
+getting to be torture to him. And it all intensified his determination
+to have a plain talk with Mrs. Douglas. The opportunity for it was not
+easy. Mrs. Douglas was close by Helen nearly every moment. The camp
+duties were many and the little company was of necessity grouped close
+together during the march. But Bauer with his regular stock of dogged
+patience bided his time, sure it would come.
+
+Camp was pitched that night at the foot of the Oraibi trail. Almost as
+soon as the wagons were located Van Shaw came over to Mrs. Douglas
+carrying a cot.
+
+"We've got an extra cot, Mrs. Douglas, and it won't take any time to fix
+that litter. We can use some of our tent poles. I'll be glad to fix the
+thing up in the morning."
+
+Mrs. Douglas thanked him quietly, and Helen expressed her gratitude.
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't miss seeing the sight to-morrow for anything. Isn't it
+wonderful. That rock? How weird it all is. Why, you can hardly tell
+where the rock begins and the houses leave off. Just to think of seven
+or eight hundred people living up there all these centuries keeping up
+these queer customs. And oh, look! What is that?"
+
+A line of Indian women filed past up the trail about twenty-five feet
+apart, each one carrying on her back a large clay water jar. They did
+not walk, they trotted along in a tireless steady stride that spoke of
+centuries of training before them. The weight of the jars was not far
+from thirty pounds.
+
+Masters was passing Helen's wagon.
+
+"That's woman's rights," he said gravely. "The water supply at Oraibi
+for centuries has been jars on the backs of women. You must get used to
+thinking of seven hundred people dependent on the daily trips of these
+women for all the water used on top of that rock for washing, cooking,
+drinking. The women of Oraibi also have the right of building the houses
+the men live in. They are the masons, while the men are the dressmakers.
+And there are people who would like to keep these women perpetually at
+these tasks, they say it so 'picturesque.'"
+
+"I was just going to say that myself," said Helen.
+
+Masters smiled sadly. "Look at the mothers in Oraibi to-morrow. See what
+heathenism has done for them." He passed on and Van Shaw who had stared
+at Masters as he spoke said to Helen--"They're queer beggars, ain't
+they. But I don't believe in trying to change them. They belong here.
+Might as well let 'em go on the way they've been going the last thousand
+years."
+
+Helen looked at him with the first feeling she had had of possible
+distrust or dislike. Van Shaw had spoken just as he really felt, and
+Helen saw a brief ways into his real character. But as she looked again
+at the winding figures steadily trotting up the steep path, she had a
+momentary doubt in her own mind as to the ultimate wisdom of Masters and
+Clifford in trying to change the century old customs and habits of these
+desert people.
+
+The day of the snake dance at Oraibi dawned strangely with a heavy
+shower.
+
+"They're getting their answer to their prayer before they offer it,"
+said Mr. Douglas to Clifford as they sat up on their rugs and listened
+to the downpour on the tent.
+
+"It has no effect on them," replied Clifford. "The snake dance means a
+prayer for rain for the whole season. This rain the poor devils believe
+is an answer to their prayer made two years ago. It's a little late in
+getting here but every drop of water between the two dances is so
+accounted for."
+
+By the middle of the forenoon it had cleared up and the two parties,
+increased by other tourist crowds that had come in during the night,
+proceeded to climb the trail into Oraibi.
+
+Van Shaw and his two friends in spite of the rain had got up early and
+finished making the litter. When the moment came for Helen to be
+transferred to it there was an embarrassing halt and the young men eyed
+one another. Felix was determined to be one of the carriers and Walter
+was bound to be another. Van Shaw seemed to take for granted that as he
+was the one who had suggested the affair he should be another. The two
+friends from Pittsburgh protested that they would be desolate if not
+allowed to help.
+
+Felix and Walter had gone to the head of the cot and seized the ends of
+the tent poles and Van Shaw had stepped up to one of the poles at the
+other end when Esther, who perhaps sensed some electricity in the air
+not caused by the recent thunder storm, said to Paul:
+
+"You take hold with Mr. Van Shaw, Paul, and let Mr. Coleman and Mr.
+Calder take their turn later. The trail looks very steep. I'm sure you
+will need to be relieved occasionally."
+
+They started accordingly and Helen laughingly complimented her cavaliers
+as they picked up the cot and after several trials discovered the most
+effective way of handling it.
+
+The trail was bounded on one side by the Oraibi cemetery. The recent
+rains had washed some of the bodies out of their graves made in the
+loose gravel of the steep hill. The trail wound up sharply, disclosing
+at every turn some new marvel of the limitless expanse below. A Hopi
+came out on a ledge far above them and chanted his song to the sun.
+Every step brought the party nearer the queer built houses and the kivas
+with their projecting ladders. Other visitors and tourists were on the
+trail in front and the progress was slow. Several stops were made and
+changes occurred in the order of carriers, but when the top of the rock
+was reached, Masters, who with Mrs. Masters and Miss Gray were close
+behind the litter, suddenly exclaimed, "There is Talavenka!" pointing to
+the roof of the first house fronting the trail. A Hopi maiden,
+distinguished by her whorl of hair as unmarried, stood up by the ladder,
+smiling down at the party.
+
+Mrs. Douglas, who was walking with Mrs. Masters and who had during the
+trip heard of this one Christian Hopi, went over to the foot of the
+ladder with her. Paul, who was tremendously interested in all sorts of
+Indian lore, went into the house to examine some wedding baskets. The
+two Pittsburgh young men suddenly found themselves surrounded with an
+Indian group selling curios, Walter sauntered over in the direction of
+Miss Gray to ask her about the kivas. Felix stayed jealously for a while
+by Helen who was simply carried away with the wonderful sights all about
+her, but looking over in Mrs. Douglas's direction and seeing her for a
+moment alone, thought his opportunity to speak to her ought to be seized
+at once, and went over towards her. And so it happened naturally enough
+that for a moment Helen and Van Shaw were left together. The crowd of
+tourists, curious, chattering, laughing, careless, flowed up the trail
+past them and began scattering over the village seeking curios and
+poking their heads into the doors of the little houses. The sun flamed
+out in a clear blue sky, the grey rock turned red under its hot stroke,
+and Helen, who lay restfully on her litter which had been placed on top
+of one of the kivas, indulged her romance loving spirit to the full as
+she lay there almost forgetful of Van Shaw's presence until she was
+startled out of her day dream by his voice as he moved from where he had
+been standing and came and sat down on the edge of the kiva near her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+"MISS DOUGLAS, I haven't had half a chance to talk to you and you'll
+forgive me, won't you, if I take advantage of this moment."
+
+Helen was not in the slightest degree prepared for what Van Shaw was
+going to say. She was conscious, as every beautiful young woman must be,
+of her charms and of the effect of them on the young men she met, but
+she would have been a most remarkably vain and shallow person if she had
+ever imagined for herself such a scene as the one now being acted out on
+the top of the rock at Oraibi. The wildest stretch of her romantic
+temperament had never carried her so far, and when she first began to
+really grasp the sense of what Van Shaw was saying she was frightened
+and angry. At the same time there was a certain feeling of pride and
+exultation of which she was vaguely ashamed.
+
+Helen quietly began to say some simple thing in reply to Van Shaw's
+first remark when he hurriedly went on, interrupting her:
+
+"I won't have much time to speak now, but I'm going to risk everything,
+and tell you. I just can't keep it to myself. It may sound awfully
+absurd to you,--I suppose it does, but I can't help it. I'm just simply
+dead in love with you and I want you to know that I------"
+
+"What!" said Helen sharply. She was so disturbed, so confused in her
+mind that Van Shaw's words seemed unreal, as unreal as the kiva on which
+she was sitting or the changing groups of vivid colour moving about on
+the tops of the houses.
+
+"I can't help it," Van Shaw began again hurriedly, "You do not know how
+fascinating you are. It has just swept me off my feet."
+
+This time Helen understood what Van Shaw was saying and her face was
+flooded with a swift wave of colour. And she said coldly:
+
+"You have no right to talk to me like that. I will not listen." She
+turned her head and saw her mother just coming out of Talavenka's house,
+standing at the foot of the ladder as if preparing to go up with Mrs.
+Masters to the house roof.
+
+"Mother!" she called, in a dim way thinking of nothing except her desire
+somehow to escape a very embarrassing scene with Van Shaw. But there was
+so much noise made by the clattering groups of tourists and the sudden
+arrival of new comers that Mrs. Douglas did not hear. Besides at that
+moment Helen saw Bauer speaking to her and the next moment he and her
+mother had walked slowly off together up the tortuous village street and
+were lost to sight in the crowd.
+
+Van Shaw sat down on the kiva, and smiled a little. But his face was
+pale, and evidently for one of the rare occasions in his life he was
+truly and desperately in earnest.
+
+"You can't blame me, can you?"
+
+"It's--it's simply impossible. It's out of the question. I have not
+known you two days."
+
+"It doesn't take lighting two days to hit," said Van Shaw doggedly.
+
+"I won't listen. I forbid your talking to me," said Helen haughtily.
+
+"All right. But you can't forbid my thinking of you."
+
+"But I can and I will refuse to be in your company!" said Helen. She was
+angry now at something undefined in Van Shaw's manner. "If you do not
+leave me at once, I will try to leave you." She actually made a movement
+to rise and put her foot on the ground at the edge of the kiva. Van Shaw
+instantly got up and said quickly, "Of course I'll go. But I can't
+change my feelings and never shall. Promise me one thing. Don't believe
+all the stories you may hear about me."
+
+He had turned and walked up the street and Helen sank back with a
+strange feeling of relief mingled with shame and again that other
+feeling--what was it, pride? The sense of power over men? The feeling
+that her beauty was a gift or something else? She was frightened at it
+all put together and felt irritated to be left alone by the rest of the
+party as she looked around at the medley of old and new jumbled together
+in that Hopi village. And then the next reaction left her nervous and
+somewhat hysterical as she tried to imagine such a thing in a book. She
+actually laughed and the next moment Miss Gray and Walter appeared, at
+the edge of the kiva. Miss Gray came running up to her.
+
+"It's a shame to leave you here alone. How did that happen?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. I haven't been alone long. How strange everything
+is."
+
+"Yes. And it gets stranger the more you see of it. Talavenka and her
+mother have asked us to eat with them. They will have something ready in
+about an hour. You had better go in and rest there a while. It's too hot
+out here. Where are your jinrikisha men?"
+
+"Van Shaw just went up the street," said Walter looking closely at
+Helen.
+
+"We don't need him," said Miss Gray. "Mr. Douglas, will you get Mr.
+Coleman and Mr. Calder? There they are, over there. I'll help, and we'll
+take Helen over to Talavenka's."
+
+Walter went over to call the Pittsburgh young men and Miss Gray and
+Helen were together a moment. Helen suddenly asked:
+
+"Do you know Mr. Van Shaw, Lucy? Didn't I hear you say to mother
+yesterday that he was related distantly to your mother?"
+
+"Yes," said Miss Gray slowly. "He is. What do you want to know?"
+
+"Anything you can tell me."
+
+Miss Gray looked troubled.
+
+"Are you willing to tell me why you want to know?"
+
+Helen hesitated. Walter and the young men were approaching.
+
+"Give me your full confidence," Miss Gray smiled at Helen. "And I will
+know better what to tell."
+
+"I will when there is time for it," Helen said and that was all she
+could say, before she was carried into Talavenka's house.
+
+Once inside the little square room with its corn grinding boxes taking
+up one whole side of it there was so much of interest that Helen let
+everything else wait, as she watched the preparations for the meal soon
+to be served. It would be several hours before the snake dance and in
+that time there was no likelihood that Van Shaw would try to speak to
+her again. She was not afraid of that, but she felt uneasy at the
+thought of some future scene, just what she was not clear about, but it
+vexed and allured her until finally the surroundings compelled all her
+attention and drove everything else out of her imagination.
+
+Her father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Masters and Miss Gray were invited
+with her to the mid day meal in the house. The rest of the Tolchaco
+party ate out of doors on the platform by the door. There was boiled
+mutton, red, white and blue wafer bread made of corn meal that made one
+think he was eating wall paper, Elijah Clifford said, melons, green peas
+taken from a can that had a Ft. Wayne, Ind., label on it, and to Mr. and
+Mrs. Douglas's astonishment some delicious peaches brought by
+Talavenka's brother all the way from their little garden down by the
+Oraibi Wash. In reply to questions from Mr. Masters, who used Talavenka
+as interpreter, Schewingoiashchi said, as if it were an ordinary every
+day occurrence, that her oldest boy nineteen years old had run
+twenty-five miles that forenoon to get the peaches from the orchard for
+their anticipated guests.
+
+About an hour before sunset they all went out to the village plaza to
+witness the great event of the year in Oraibi. And as long as they live
+they will need no photographs or pictures to make the weird scene vivid
+to them.
+
+Picture a grey mass of rock rising up abruptly above the desert, bare of
+tree or shrub; scattered over its irregular top, blocks of two and three
+story stone and dried brick houses, for the most part square in outward
+shape, with steps on the outside built into the wall, or heavy ladders
+with long projecting ends resting upon platforms built in front of small
+square topped doorways, the roofs flat and covered with dried grasses.
+No stairways within these houses permitting passage from lower to upper
+rooms, and all built after century old architectural plans, by the hands
+of women. Between the blocks of irregular houses picture rectangular
+slabs of stone rising two feet above the ground, containing an opening
+in the middle out of which project high in the air the two ends of a
+hard-wood ladder, the rungs of which have been worn almost through by
+the passage of naked feet that have pressed up and down on these bits of
+wood for scores of years. It is not easy to imagine the real fact that
+down in those upstairs cellars the men of Oraibi lead their club life,
+weaving down there in the dim light that filters past the ladder, the
+rugs and belts and other material mysteriously used for religious
+ceremonial. And down in the snake priests' kiva, just over yonder, the
+venomous reptiles have been kept for weeks past in the sacrificial clay
+jars, out of which they have crawled during the rites of their
+purification and hung in twisted hissing knots out of the crevices
+between the sides of the kiva walls, from which places the brown hands
+of old Thisdoa, Talavenka's father, have only this morning taken them to
+put in the cottonwood booth out on the village plaza, where they are now
+awaiting their part in the coming ceremony. For old Thisdoa is the head
+priest and knows more of the mysteries of the snake nature than any
+being in Oraibi.
+
+The sun is just on the edge of the desert. All traces of the morning
+storm are vanished. Out on the tops of the houses all about the open
+plaza, groups of men and women begin to appear, the unmarried girls
+distinguished from the married by the graceful whorls of black hair
+standing out in marked contrast with the two rolls that hang down past
+the ears of the matrons. Cowboys, Navajo horsemen, traders, all the
+non-acting part of Oraibi's population, tourists, photographers,
+visitors, crowd up in a rainbow coloured fringe about the sandy
+depression which now contains only one conspicuous object, the
+cottonwood booth or kisi, the size of a boy's wigwam, having a canvas
+flap on the side opening close by the broad board over which the feet of
+the priests will thump as they file past. A moving picture machine is
+installed on top of a near-by house. The Boston, New York, Pittsburgh,
+Cleveland and Chicago tourists and newspaper men are grouped about in
+what they believe are advantageous positions. The costumes vary from
+smart tailor made dresses worn by the tourist girls from Cincinnati to a
+Hopi child's dress made of a piece of a gunny sack bearing the name of a
+Minnesota flouring mill. Over all the jumble of old and new, modern and
+ancient, the setting sun floods the medley of colour and language and
+dress and Christian and pagan. And in the stillness that waits the
+coming of the twenty-four priests out of the kivas, the town crier walks
+out on the corner of a house top and cries aloud an announcement of a
+service to be held that night in the little mission chapel out there on
+the edge of the rock.
+
+"What's that?" asked one of the tourists near Clifford.
+
+"That's the town crier of Oraibi," said Clifford. "There are no
+newspapers up here and the official village news purveyor is telling the
+crowd to come over to the Gospel meeting to-night. He says Mr. Masters
+is going to preach in three languages. Better come and hear him in one
+of 'em."
+
+The tourist stares at Clifford. "Well of all the places on earth for
+preaching, this beats me. Do you mean to say a preacher will actually
+hold a service up here after this snake dance and expect to get an
+audience?"
+
+"Will he?" says Clifford cheerfully. "You had better come early or you
+won't get a seat. And as for preaching you'll hear a better sermon than
+you ever heard in Cincinnati, Ohio."
+
+"I guess that may be so," says the tourist. "For I haven't been to
+church since I don't know when."
+
+"You need preaching then, like the rest of these heathen," said Clifford
+so simply that the Cincinnati man takes no offence but promises to go
+over to the service if he isn't too tired.
+
+The rim of the sun is an hour above the horizon and the crowd has ceased
+its chatter. It is very quiet on the grey rock of Oraibi, although a
+thousand people are looking intently at the openings of the two kivas.
+Suddenly from the one nearest the Tolchaco party up the ladder the chief
+of the Antelope priests appears. He holds the rattle box in his hand and
+is followed by the eleven priests, the last one a lad twelve years old.
+The line twists through the fringe of visitors, as oblivious of any
+onlookers as if they were going through this ceremony five hundred years
+ago when not a white face was dreamed of and when the Hopi was doing
+exactly what old Thisdoa and his grandson are doing to-day.
+
+Then from out the other kiva the stately snake priests emerge, a group
+of twelve old men each bearing the rattle which contains the grains of
+corn. The incessant pattering of the rattles is the only sound heard in
+the plaza until the soft moccasined feet reach the board over the hole
+in front of the kisi. The thump, thump, thump of the feet pound over the
+board to call the attention of the underworld gods to the needs of their
+children up here. The sandy plaza is traversed and the two lines of
+priests circle about, finally stopping in front of the kisi, facing one
+another; then rises the "wo, wo, wo, wo," the guttural chant. The Hopis
+have been for many years a peaceful people, but this monotonous chant,
+rising occasionally into a swelling crescendo howl sends delightful cold
+shivers down the backs of the visitors, and even Elijah Clifford says he
+wouldn't want to meet that howl unexpectedly around the corner. Then the
+priests file past the kisi one by one, stoop by the opening and receive
+from the old warrior priest sitting within, a snake. Each one raises his
+snake to his mouth and holds it there between his teeth as he walks
+about the plaza accompanied by his hugger or companion. Suddenly the
+snakes are released and thrown down upon the sand. They make swift and
+desperate efforts to escape but are caught up again with such rapidity
+of movement that the closest attention paid by the tourists can not
+discover how it is done. Round and round the procession of twenty-four
+moves. Out from the houses near the snake kiva a group of girls and
+women suddenly run. They stop at the edge of the plaza near the Tolchaco
+party and scatter the sacred corn meal on the ground. Navajo horsemen
+dismount and pick up pinches of this sacred meal to put in their pouches
+for good luck. The twenty-four priests with their snakes twisting in
+their sinewy brown hands turn together and with a common movement all
+dart up to the place where the meal lies. They circle about the spot.
+Paul raises Helen up a little higher so that she can throw a horrified
+gaze into that astonishing scene. For a moment the only thing she and
+the rest can see is a squirming, hissing heap of snakes, apparently
+tangled together in an angry mass. And then the twenty-four priests
+shoulder one another as they stoop and with both hands grab up as many
+snakes as they can hold in their fingers, and suddenly separating, turn
+and face towards the edge of the rock, running with all their might,
+thrusting the snakes into the faces of any unlucky tourist or visitor
+who may be in the way.
+
+There is a rush for the edge of the rock. Those who line up there see
+the lean figures of the priests leaping down the wild trail. Their forms
+can hardly be distinguished as they reach the desert and are dimly seen
+to be kneeling in prayer over the snakes as they let them go, down to
+the great plumed snake to beseech him to send rain, rain, rain, on the
+corn and melons of his children up here.
+
+The rest of the ceremony is purification. The priests come panting and
+sweating up the rock. On the edge of the snake priests' kiva the women
+bring out huge jars of mysterious brown liquid. The panting figures
+kneel there in the now desert twilight and drink great draughts of this
+liquor. Kneeling about over the rock they disgorge from their mouths
+what they have been drinking. The merciful darkness is closing in
+swiftly over this disgusting scene, participated in, however, in all
+reverence by the priests and gazed upon in astonishing seriousness by
+the spectators, for is it not all a part of the painful crucifying of
+the flesh that these poor creatures have been subjecting themselves to
+for centuries in their blind but constant desire to find God, the God of
+the rain, the rain, the rain.
+
+Gradually the priests disappear down into the kiva where a feast has
+been prepared for them by the women. The great festival, which will not
+occur again at Oraibi for two years, is over.
+
+Paul sees Masters standing by him. In the dim light he realises with a
+start as he looks up, that the tears are rolling down over Masters's
+face.
+
+"Oh, the people! How long will they seek after God in these ways! Oh,
+for the power to open their eyes to see him as He is!"
+
+Through the growing darkness groups of tourists and visitors pass,
+choking the narrow paths between the houses, crowding into the trail
+down to the wagons at the foot of the rock. Among the confusion of
+chattering voices and exclamations one shrill voice of a girl penetrates
+through to the hearing of Masters and Paul.
+
+"Wasn't it the greatest thing you ever saw? and oh, how picturesque!
+Those people, those girls on the houses! What a pity it would be to
+spoil it by trying to civilise these nature children!"
+
+Masters looked at Paul grimly.
+
+"Yes, it would be a great pity, wouldn't it? I wish that girl could stay
+here one winter and enjoy the picturesqueness of a Hopi Indian girl's
+life. I wonder if she has any little thought of the real life of these
+'nature children'? Of its misery, its impurity, its dreadful sin and
+superstition and darkness; its infant mortality; its pain and disease
+due to the absence of any sanitary or medical skill. But most of all its
+ignorance of Jesus Christ and his love. 'Picturesque!' I grant you it
+is. But Christianity would not destroy anything worth keeping. For
+centuries these 'nature children' have walked in darkness. Are they not
+entitled, like that white girl, to the light of life? And did you see
+Talavenka when her father reached into the kisi for the snake?"
+
+"No," said Paul, "I must confess my eyes were on the priests, not the
+spectators."
+
+"Talavenka was crying all through the ceremony. Her father can not
+understand her new life. The girl stands alone in the midst of this
+superstition. What will become of her? The estrangement in the family is
+one of the most painful things I ever knew. Her mother Schewingoiashchi
+is the only one who seems kind to her. At times I think Schewingoiashchi
+is not far from the Kingdom herself. She does not object to Talavenka's
+baptism. We have talked of that. It will be a part of our service
+to-night. I must go and get ready."
+
+Paul and Esther and the rest of the party went to Talavenka's house for
+the evening meal. Masters, who was of the old school of preachers, they
+learned afterwards had spent the hour before the service out on the edge
+of the rock a little past the mission chapel, praying in the darkness
+for the people of Oraibi.
+
+Helen was very eager to go to see Talavenka baptised. During the
+afternoon she had noticed the girl's grief and had been deeply touched
+by it. They were of the same age, she had learned from Mrs. Masters. The
+few words she spoke in English during the midday meal had revealed a
+quiet dignity and a genuine Christian faith. Already Helen's romantic
+temperament was constructing a plan to have Talavenka leave Oraibi and
+finish her education in Milton academy.
+
+"We can carry you over to the chapel all right," her father said. "Where
+are those young men? I haven't seen Van Shaw or his friends all the
+afternoon."
+
+"They were there, I saw them," said Walter.
+
+"I saw them on the other side of the plaza," said Bauer who had not lost
+sight of Van Shaw during the afternoon and had wondered more than once
+why he was avoiding Helen. He had had his talk with Mrs. Douglas and had
+been tormented all through that ancient prayer for rain with questions
+as to his wisdom in telling some things to Helen's mother. But he was
+not given to doubt concerning his motives and in this particular
+instance he had no hesitation over his own absolutely clean and
+disinterested motive. He wanted Helen to escape the horror of a union
+with a degenerate mind and heart as he knew they existed in Van Shaw's
+character and his own feeling for her did not occupy a prominent place
+in his motive. Of that much he was sure and it helped him somewhat to
+get through one of the most trying experiences of his life.
+
+Bauer went on to say to Mr. Douglas that he had seen Van Shaw and his
+two friends go down the trail to their wagons and had not seen them come
+back up the rock. So Paul and Walter, Clifford and Felix took Helen over
+to the mission chapel towards which various groups could be seen moving
+through the unlighted spaces of Oraibi's crooked and narrow windings.
+
+The chapel had been built by a small missionary society ambitious to
+signalise its existence by doing something desperately hard in a corner
+of the world where no missionary work had ever been done. The missionary
+in charge had laboured several years with that marvelous patience and
+persistence which nothing but the history of missions in this old world
+has ever recorded. And as a result of his work Talavenka had come into
+the light. She had spent two winters at the mission in Tolchaco and
+Masters had shaped and enlarged the faith that first had begun to glow
+on the grey rock of Oraibi. And the missionary had been planning to have
+Masters hold this special service and baptise Talavenka from the time he
+heard of his coming up to the snake dance.
+
+Masters found a place on one end of the little platform for Helen's cot
+where she lay propped up in comfortable fashion. The room was very small
+and it filled up rapidly. When it would hold no more it is doubtful if
+any man with a message ever faced a more mixed or astonishing audience.
+
+There were native Hopis, old men and women who did not understand a word
+of English. Navajo visitors, men who never appeared at Oraibi except
+once in two years. Paul recognised one man whom Masters had pointed out
+one day at Tolchaco as a notorious gambler and horse trader, known all
+over the painted desert as "Iadaka" the gambler; there were traders from
+the different government posts; a few teachers from the government
+schools; a bunch of cowboys from Flagstaff; half a dozen Apaches who had
+come up to Oraibi from an encampment near the Bottomless Pits; a dozen
+tourists from a half dozen different cities in the east attracted from
+tourist curiosity; three interpreters, one of whom happened to be in
+government employ and had been caught at Oraibi and detained there by an
+accident to his team on the way to Shungapavi. Masters knew him and
+asked him to come in and help at the service.
+
+Besides this miscellaneous and polyglot audience inside the room, Helen
+soon became aware of nearly as many more spectators and listeners
+outside the building crowded about the open windows. The night was warm
+and still. The chapel had three windows on each side, and two at the
+rear behind the platform, and at each opening dark faces of various
+nationalities grouped and peered in with stoical or wondering interest.
+After the service had begun Helen suddenly became aware of the presence
+of Van Shaw and his two friends. They had evidently finished their
+supper and camp work and come back up the rock to be present at the
+chapel service but had been too late to get inside. Helen felt Van
+Shaw's gaze directed constantly at herself. He had secured a position
+close up to the second window from the platform. Helen again had that
+curious blending of anger and exultation, of shame and gratified vanity
+as if there were forces at work in her at war with one another tempting
+and antagonistic, attractive and repellant. But after one look had been
+exchanged between her and Van Shaw she changed her position on the cot
+so that she was partly hidden from him by a lamp which stood on one
+corner of the little parlour organ of the platform.
+
+Do you know of any greater heroes than the heroes of the cross? These
+are the undaunted, unterrified, passion-filled souls of the earth.
+Masters personified the very spirit of aggressive, human, loving
+Christianity. That strange room full of humanity would have appalled
+anyone but a real soul-hungry man. What could anyone do with it? Century
+old vices and superstitions, brutal contempt for anything but coarse
+pleasures, stolid indifference to God, measureless egotism and age-long
+selfishness looked at him from the faces in the room and at the windows,
+from "Iadaka" and the wrinkled Hopis, from the sentimental tourist girl
+and Van Shaw and his two friends, from the dull visaged Apaches and the
+smirking traders, one of whom, to Master's own knowledge, had for years
+been cheating the rug weavers all the way from Black Bear Canyon to the
+Spanish Peaks.
+
+And yet for some reason or a number of reasons, these humans were all
+here in front of him and as he looked at them, Masters had soul hunger
+for them. He loved the multitude. And it never entered his simple
+thought that anything else was possible but that in the long run they
+would all have to go down before the conquering Carpenter's Son. Yes,
+even old "Iadaka." He would some day see the light and he would walk and
+run all the way from Crested Buttes to the Bottomless Pit and throw his
+da'aka in there and kneel at Jesus feet and call him Lord. Have not the
+peoples of the earth been doing that all through the ages? Is not the
+miracle of regeneration greatest of all miracles since Jesus lived? Is
+anything too hard for God?
+
+So Masters's simple unswerving faith spoke that night. He told in the
+simplest possible way the story of the cross. The old, old story that is
+changing the history of the world every day. The old story that is not
+afraid of modern philosophy, nor antique prejudice nor even the scoffing
+and sneering of Athens and the jeers of Vanity Fair and the complacent
+self satisfaction of the modern pharisee.
+
+Then he told Talavenka's story as he knew she would be willing to have
+it told. The Hopi girl had sat on the front seat close to the platform.
+She was dressed in white and Helen wondered with herself more than once
+if Talavenka was like other girls and really knew or understood how
+marvellous was her black hair and her perfect coloured skin. And then
+almost as if someone had asked her, Helen asked herself if Talavenka had
+ever known a lover and if the great romance of life could come to her
+now that she had cut herself off from her people, and the swift runner
+in the corn dance might no longer look for her to come out in the grey
+morning and with the other maidens snatch from his arms the cool dew
+washed corn leaves and from his glowing eye the message which is the
+same between youths and maidens the world over.
+
+But Talavenka was conscious herself of no other thought here to-night in
+the mission chapel at Oraibi. Masters spoke to her of her faith and
+asked her a few questions. The girl's face shone with intelligent
+affection for her Redeemer and then the missionary rose and held the
+baptismal bowl. Talavenka kneeled between him and Masters, Elijah
+Clifford with the tear in his eye standing by Miss Gray as if naturally
+their common interest in Talavenka and knowledge of her history made
+their mutual nearness a natural thing. Masters touched Talavenka's
+forehead with the water and said in a voice that trembled for the first
+time that night, "Talavenka, I baptise thee because of thy faith in the
+Lord Jesus, into the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy
+Ghost. Amen."
+
+All through the service Masters had spoken through one or the other of
+the interpreters. In turn the Hopis, the Navajos, and the Apaches had
+heard of Jesus and what he had said had been listened to in some
+instances with evident eagerness. But the baptism of Talavenka impressed
+all alike. Even the stolid imagination of the trader from Red Stone
+Tanks could understand a little of the significance of what was going on
+there that night when the first Hopi maiden was being baptised into a
+religion which her ancestors for centuries had known nothing about.
+
+They sang "My Faith looks up to Thee," and after a prayer by Miss Gray,
+which was so tender it made Helen cry, the meeting was over.
+
+The people went out slowly. Those who knew Talavenka came up to see her.
+Her mother had sat still as if graven there all through the evening.
+Suddenly she drew her shawl over her head and rose and went out.
+Talavenka trembled as she watched her. "My mother!" was all she said. It
+was a whole volume of longing for her redemption. Helen heard her and
+held out her hand to her as she stood there near the little platform.
+And the two girls, one born in Christian civilisation, nurtured in soft
+and comfortable ways, and the other who first drew breath in a dark and
+filthy corner of a stone hut on this treeless rock, drew near together
+and the Christian faith of each swiftly bridged over all the centuries
+of difference in matters of language, customs and ceremonies. For is it
+not beautifully true that when Jesus enters a life it becomes a part of
+all life everywhere, and there is no longer any Greek nor Jew, neither
+Barbarian, Scythian, bondman or freeman, but all are one.
+
+At that instant Van Shaw and his friends came down the aisle of the
+little room. They had crowded in as soon as enough people had gone out.
+They came up now, greeting the other tourists, some of whom they had met
+for the first time that afternoon.
+
+Van Shaw, however, seemed especially anxious to reach the spot where
+Mrs. Douglas was standing talking with one of the government teachers
+from Kean's Canyon. In passing one of the tourists who was in the middle
+of the aisle, Van Shaw came face to face with Bauer, and to Bauer's
+tremendous astonishment Van Shaw said at once in a threatening
+tone--which, however, he guarded so as not to be heard by anyone else:
+
+"I understand you have been meddling in my affairs. I consider it a
+mighty sneaking thing for you to do and I want you to understand I
+won't------"
+
+Bauer recovered his composure quickly as he interrupted Van Shaw.
+
+"We can't very well discuss this matter in here."
+
+"I want a word with Mrs. Douglas first," said Van Shaw.
+
+But Bauer stepped in front of him and said:
+
+"I think you had better have a word with me first."
+
+Van Shaw looked at him uncertainly and then turned and walked out of the
+chapel. Bauer followed him immediately.
+
+The only light out on the rock was starlight. Darkness covered the
+blurred outline of Oraibi's houses, with only an occasional point of
+light here and there, or the sudden glow from some kiva as the opening
+reflected the fire at the bottom.
+
+Van Shaw walked slowly as if by appointment out to the edge of the rock.
+When he stopped, Bauer was close by him. In the mist far below a red
+glow marked the camp by the Oraibi Wash. The night was very still and
+they were almost near enough to the chapel to distinguish the sound of
+voices within.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+"NOW that we are here," said Van Shaw, "I simply want to repeat what I
+said. You don't butt into my affairs. Keep out. Coleman overheard a part
+of what you told Mrs. Douglas to-day while you were near the cemetery
+rock. He was on the other side of it. What you said may be true, but I
+consider it a sneaking thing and I won't stand for it."
+
+Bauer was still. In the first place he had never faced such a situation
+and in the darkness there he swiftly recurred to his talk with Mrs.
+Douglas. He had found her already prepared for a part of what he had to
+say. Esther, sensitively intelligent in anything relating to Helen's
+welfare, had not seen Van Shaw a moment before she felt a repulsion for
+him amounting to horror. What Bauer told her from his own knowledge of
+Van Shaw's immoral life in Burrton roused all her mother instincts to
+protect her child from a fate worse than death if she should marry a man
+who had already fallen. She shared in the fullest degree with Bauer's
+deep fear that Helen might, in her desire for the soft and beautiful
+things of wealth, risk her very life itself, not because she knew she
+was doing it, but partly through ignorance of the real character of the
+man who had the unblushing selfishness to ask a pure girl like Helen to
+accept him as a husband, knowing himself to be what he was.
+
+And Bauer, measuring in his slow but not stupid fashion all the
+consequences of his action in warning Mrs. Douglas, knowing clearly the
+code of morals governing men like Van Shaw and the wicked and
+unchristian standard of even so-called Christian society in condemning
+what it called "telling on others," nevertheless went forward to do what
+seemed to him to be only necessary in the name of common honour and
+decency.
+
+The fact that Van Shaw had found out what he had done did not disturb
+him greatly. The only thing that troubled him now was to hold himself
+sufficiently in hand. He had never hated anyone in his life except this
+rich man's son and he had been slow to entertain that feeling for him.
+But it had grown like a tropical plant within the last three days. And
+all the old Teutonic rage latent in him was at the boiling point
+whenever he thought of Van Shaw and Helen together. He said to himself
+there in the darkness that if there had been light enough to see Van
+Shaw's sneering face he would have struck it. He remembered hearing his
+own father say once that one of his ancestors at Lausbrachen had choked
+the life out of a family enemy, using only one hand around the man's
+throat. He was so afraid of himself now that he involuntarily stepped
+back away from Van Shaw and Van Shaw noted it and put the action down to
+cowardice or fear.
+
+"Well, are you going to keep out of my affairs? Is it any business of
+yours whether I try to make friends with the Douglases? Or
+perhaps------" he suddenly changed his tone as if a new thought had
+broken in on his mind. "Look here, Bauer. Perhaps--well, maybe you don't
+understand------I am going to marry Miss Douglas!"
+
+"What!" Bauer cried out. He stepped nearer Van Shaw and Van Shaw stepped
+back, nearer the edge of the rock.
+
+"Well," Van Shaw laughed. "That is, as soon as she says yes, I am. My
+intentions are all right. But--" and his accustomed mood quickly
+reasserted itself, "I warn you to keep out. Leave my affairs alone. A
+fellow whose father and mother have done what yours have, isn't in the
+best position to throw stones at other people."
+
+Felix Bauer long years afterwards confessed to the dearest friend he
+had, that in that moment he had the nearest approach to the thought of
+murder and hate he ever knew. But before he could reply to Van Shaw's
+brutality he saw him stagger and reel and throw up his arms on the edge
+of the rock. He heard him cry out, "For God's sake, Bauer!" and then he
+fell backward and disappeared over the cliff.
+
+For a second Bauer stood in his place smitten with horror. He was
+totally ignorant of the character of the ground where Van Shaw had been
+standing and of what lay below. Evidently a shelving piece of the rotten
+sandstone had broken off. How much of the edge was dangerous it was
+impossible to tell there in the dark. He uttered one loud cry of "Help!"
+and then flung himself down full length and dragged himself up to the
+place where Van Shaw had disappeared.
+
+Just as he reached the edge, he heard fragments of the rock go rattling
+down and a sound as of a heavy body falling somewhere. He peered over
+fearfully. He shouted again. He looked, straining down, and it seemed to
+him that about twenty feet below he could see a huddled-up body lying on
+a projecting ledge.
+
+And then Felix Bauer did as brave or as foolhardy a thing as anyone ever
+did. It was partly to punish himself for the murderous feeling he had
+entertained a moment before that he now said, "Good God! I must save him
+now. Help me, God! Help me!"
+
+He swung about on the edge of the ragged rock and let his feet down. He
+felt a projecting knob of something, and then for a sickening second he
+paused and shouted again and then he let go, hugging the face of the
+cliff. As he went down, he began to realise thankfully that the cliff
+was rough and irregular. His hands were running blood, but he did not
+know it. As he felt resting places for his feet, or anything for his
+hands to clutch, he sobbed, "God help me! God help me!"
+
+He was down at last near enough to see that Van Shaw had fallen in a
+bent-over position on a shelf of rock, a little more than wide enough to
+hold his body. He called to him but received no answer. At last he was
+near enough to drop down on the ledge but as he was about to do so, Van
+Shaw, with a groan of pain, turned over, and began to roll towards the
+edge.
+
+Bauer desperately let go of everything, fell in a lump and snatched at
+Van Shaw. He caught one arm and, panting, held onto it. The rest of Van
+Shaw's body was hanging over the side of the ledge, and even in that
+critical moment Bauer recalled his first view of Oraibi rock as the
+wagons had come up from the Oraibi Wash and the Tolchaco party had
+scanned through the field glass the inaccessible sides. But he was on
+the opposite side now and how far it was below the place where he now
+was he could not tell. Only he knew it must be a killing distance down
+there in the dark that seemed to be reaching up black, heavy hands
+pulling at Van Shaw's unconscious body, pulling at it harder and harder
+every second. He could feel himself slipping down across the smooth
+ledge which offered no place for his sliding feet. He was using his last
+strength, but every second it seemed impossible. His lungs were
+bursting. The red taste of hot blood was in his mouth; he had a confused
+thought that he could let go of Van Shaw's arm any time, but he did not
+let go. He was slipping, slipping down, pulled inch by inch by those
+strong black hands of the dark down there, but still he clung and sobbed
+"God, save us!"
+
+And then Elijah Clifford's voice called to him.
+
+"I'm coming, Bauer, I'm coming."
+
+The voice gave Felix one more ounce of strength. He exerted it, was
+conscious that someone was down there with him farther off at the side
+of the ledge, then his hold loosened, everything turned black and he did
+not know any more.
+
+When he came to himself he was lying on one of the seats of the little
+chapel. Anxious white, frightened faces were all about him. He was dimly
+aware of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas and Mr. and Mrs. Masters and Elijah
+Clifford and Miss Gray and Helen and a group of tourists, one of whom he
+heard Mr. Douglas call "doctor." He seemed to feel conscious of another
+body that was lying on a bench near him, the body of Van Shaw, and as it
+stirred and groaned, he had an undefined feeling of thankfulness that he
+was still alive and that no murder had been committed. And then the hot
+taste of blood came into his mouth and he knew his hemorrhage had come
+on again.
+
+He was too weak to talk and felt irritated at the hubbub about him. But
+cots were soon provided and he and Van Shaw and Helen were carried down
+the trail to their tents, where a curious and interested group soon
+gathered. Van Shaw had broken his shoulder and one leg. The doctor was
+not certain about other and internal injuries. But Van Shaw was
+conscious and unless something unforeseen took place, he was in a fair
+way to recover.
+
+Everyone was excited and sleep was out of the question. So when
+everything possible had been done for Bauer and Van Shaw, Elijah
+Clifford told what he knew of the accident and in his own way related
+his share in the evening's adventures.
+
+"You see, I had just lighted our lantern and had stepped out of the
+chapel to light our folks down the trail when I heard Bauer's cry for
+help. I hadn't seen him go out and I didn't know what he was doing out
+there, but it's always been a rule of the Mission when anyone yells
+'help,' to run in that direction. I fell over an old standard oil can
+and broke my lantern and my shins. And I guess while I was down, Bauer
+was just getting over the edge of the rock.
+
+"Say! Talk about recklessness, I take it Herr Felix Bauer has us all
+beat to a-run-down-the-trail-and-back. You strangers from New York, how
+would you like to back off the top of the Flat Iron Building, hang onto
+the coping with your fingers for a second and then let go, trusting to
+strike a window ledge or something between the soles of your shoes and
+Madison Square? Well, that's just what this tuberculosis son of Germany
+did, and if it doesn't knock all the snake traditions of this old rock
+into piki bread crumbs then I have lost my way and forgotten where I
+started from."
+
+"How about yourself?" asked one of the New York tourists. "Didn't you go
+down the same place?"
+
+In the light of the camp fire it was not easy to see that Elijah
+Clifford actually blushed. But he did, and Miss Gray sat near enough to
+note it. If Elijah Clifford had not been so embarrassed by the New York
+man's question he might possibly, if he had been looking in Miss Gray's
+direction, have seen a new look on her face. A look of shy Admiration
+that belongs to the border land of another county called Affection,
+which is a near by state to another called Love. But Clifford hastened
+to say:
+
+"Oh, I had a light to go down with. When I fell, I broke the glass, but
+lucky the light did not go out, so I could see where I was going. And
+when I got down, there was Bauer hanging on to Van Shaw's arm in the
+most affectionate manner, as if he didn't want to have him leave before
+his visit was over. I hadn't more than time to get my foot braced on the
+lantern or something, when Bauer turned his friend over to me and for a
+minute or two he was on my hands, but by that time the folks up on top
+had let down some ropes and we soon got everybody up all right."
+
+"Elijah," said Mr. Masters reproachfully, "why don't you go into the
+details? You know that when Mr. Douglas and I climbed down on the ropes,
+you were almost over the edge with Van Shaw's body."
+
+"Well, that's the most slippery piece of rock I ever felt," said
+Clifford, and again he failed to note a movement on the part of Miss
+Gray. When Masters had said that Clifford had almost gone over the edge
+of the ledge with Van Shaw's body, she had put out the hand nearest
+Clifford, as if to hold him back.
+
+"Yes," said Clifford, "that ledge is smooth and no mistake. If any more
+folks are going to fall over onto it, I think the Commissioners in
+Oraibi ought to drive some nails into it, or else build a neat little
+concrete wall around it. There were times while I was down there
+thinking it over, that I would have given considerable for a good, high
+English garden wall on the other side of Van Shaw's body and me. A
+lantern is a poor thing to brace your feet on. It lacks staying powers."
+
+"Gentlemen," said Masters, turning to the group around the fire, "we
+have had a most wonderful deliverance from a tragedy and it is due to
+the heroism of two of the bravest men that ever lived. Elijah, don't
+interrupt me. The only way we can express our thanks is to go to the
+Heavenly Father with them," and without a moment's pause as if it were
+the most natural thing in the world, as it was with him, Masters broke
+into a prayer of thanksgiving so tender and eloquent that Helen, whose
+cot had been placed in one of the tents with its front opening near the
+fire where she could hear everything, bent her head over on her arms and
+cried.
+
+She had been under a great nervous tension all day. And this last scene,
+coming as a most astonishing climax to it all, affected her quick
+imagination. Another thing had added to all the rest, at the memory of
+which she blushed as she hid her face in her hands during the quiet that
+followed that prayer by Masters.
+
+When the three cots, her own, Bauer's and Van Shaw's, had been brought
+down the trail, at one place in a turn of the passage, while the bearers
+had to set the cots down to make some changes in the way of carrying
+them, her cot had stood a moment by the side of Van Shaw's. And in that
+moment, in the pale darkness, softened by the light of two or three
+lanterns, she had felt her hand seized. She almost screamed. It was Van
+Shaw's hand that had reached out from his blanket and for a moment he
+had almost crushed her fingers. She was not certain even now that he had
+known what he was doing, or that it was more than a convulsive movement
+in his semi-conscious condition. But the memory of it burned her cheeks
+like fire, and long after the last embers of the camp fire had died into
+grey ashes, she lay there in the tent wide awake and sleepless.
+
+After awhile she grew aware that her mother was sitting close by her.
+Esther had determined, after what she had heard from Bauer, to have a
+talk with Helen at the first opportunity. The accident to Van Shaw had
+changed her purpose somewhat, but she said to herself it had not changed
+the facts in the case of Van Shaw's character, and the matter was still
+in the same condition as before the accident happened. With that in
+mind, mother and daughter began to talk together almost in a whisper,
+mindful of the thin tent walls and the nearness of the other members of
+the party. Their precaution was, however, almost needless, for everyone
+in both camps was sound asleep, and Van Shaw's own wagon and tent were
+at the farthest bounds of the camp, removed from the rest so he would
+not be disturbed.
+
+"I can't sleep, mother, it has been such an exciting day. Was there ever
+such a day; in my life? And I think this last thing has shaken me. I
+never knew before what it meant to have nerves. But I can't shut out the
+picture of that snake dance and that terrible cliff and------"
+
+She hesitated and then feeling her mother's hand enfolding hers, she
+said, with the frankness that had always been true of her confidences
+with her mother.
+
+"There is another thing that has made the day different from any other
+day for me. I ought to tell you, mother."
+
+"Don't tell anything that belongs to you as your own."
+
+"No. But this belongs to you. I cannot rest without telling."
+
+Helen was glad the darkness hid her face. She told her mother plainly
+what Van Shaw had said to her up there on the rock during the brief time
+they had been alone.
+
+When Helen had apparently told all, Esther was silent. Helen began to
+feel frightened.
+
+"Well, mother, you don't blame me, do you? Did I, have I--at any time
+given him any--any--encouragement to think------"
+
+"No, no, dear, I am sure you have not been unmaidenly. But you do not
+know all--as I do, as others do, of this young man. I think you ought to
+know before you let your feeling, whatever it is, go farther."
+
+And in a direct, plain way, as she had always talked with her children,
+Esther told Helen what Bauer had told her.
+
+When she finished, the girl was silent so long, that her mother began to
+fear again, that deadening fear she had experienced of late whenever she
+had come to realise the girl's infatuation for the luxurious life. But
+Esther was not prepared for the question Helen asked when she broke her
+long silence.
+
+"How did you come to know all this, mother? How do you know it is true?"
+
+It was Esther's turn to be silent. If she told Helen that her source of
+information was Bauer, the girl might reasonably put it down as due to
+the jealousy of a rival, and so question its reliability. As a matter of
+fact, at that very moment, Van Shaw's parting words were in Helen's
+memory, "Don't believe all the stories you may hear about me."
+
+"Mr. Bauer told me," said Esther slowly. "He knew the facts. They are
+known to others at Burrton. His only motive was to save you the------"
+
+"He might spare himself the trouble," said Helen, sharply. "I can't help
+thinking he is interfering in my affairs and especially in Mr. Van
+Shaw's."
+
+"He certainly interfered in his affairs when he saved his life
+to-night," said Esther quietly, and the words smote Helen almost like a
+blow. For she realised for the first time that night that her sympathy
+and imagination had been exercised almost wholly for Van Shaw, broken
+and bruised in that awful fall over the cliff. "Saved his life!" Bauer
+had done that! After telling her mother the story she had just heard! It
+was a most wonderful thing to do, as Elijah Clifford had said in his
+narrative out there a little while ago. And yet, and yet, she heard
+herself saying to her mother the next moment:
+
+"It seems strange that Mr. Bauer should tell you this. It doesn't seem
+possible. I can't believe it!"
+
+At that, Esther could not suppress a heart cry so full of agony that
+Helen was terrified.
+
+"Mother! mother!" was all she could say. But Esther quickly calmed
+herself.
+
+"Helen, if this young man should be unworthy of you, could you give
+yourself to him simply because he had money to offer?"
+
+"No, no, mother, I am not wicked like that. You must not think so. I
+could not help questioning Mr. Bauer's statements. He is not
+altogether------" she could not say the word "disinterested," and her
+mother said it for her.
+
+"But he knows how hopeless his case is. He is not expecting to gain any
+favour by telling me what he knows. Can you not see it is simply to save
+you from making the most awful mistake a girl can make in all her life
+when she unknowingly marries such a man? Bauer never expects to be a
+successful suitor. I do not believe you have any true measure of his
+feeling for you. But he is willing to risk anything to spare you misery.
+Cannot you see that? What other motive could he have? He is not a rival.
+The poor fellow told me frankly that he had given up all hope for
+himself. It is pure friendship, and it is so rare and so beautiful a
+thing that you cannot afford to trample it down or disbelieve the story
+he told me. Helen, if you should let your admiration for money and its
+power take such a step as to encourage a man like Van Shaw, it would
+break your mother's heart. But worse than that, it would break your own.
+Oh, you cannot, you will not do such a thing."
+
+What could Helen say to that? And what less could Esther say to her? Let
+the careless mothers in America answer--the mothers who never talk
+frankly with their daughters about these things, and the careless
+daughters who never take their mothers into their confidence. How many
+unhappy marriages would never occur if mothers did their duty and
+daughters listened to and heeded the best friend they have on earth.
+
+When Mrs. Douglas had finally fallen asleep, Helen still remained broad
+awake. Things had been said in the heart talk that made it impossible
+for her to compose herself to sleep. She could no longer doubt the
+truthfulness of Bauer or his clear motive, and strange tumult arose in
+her thought over the statement her mother had made about his abandonment
+of any thought of her as her suitor. The fact that he had expressed such
+a sentiment to her mother made Helen a little angry. Why should he give
+up all hope so easily--why--what was she thinking? She said to herself
+she did not want men to be cowards, but surely Felix Bauer was not a
+coward. A man who would go over a cliff like that did not deserve to
+have a timid girl like her call him a coward. Only------
+
+And in the midst of all her other feelings she could not altogether shut
+out the sight of Van Shaw, broken and bruised as he had lain in agony
+there on the seat in the little chapel and she could not, even after all
+her mother had said, quite dismiss him from her thought. Her cheek
+glowed, as she raised the question in her imagination, of money and its
+fascinating power. Were all young men of wealth like Van Shaw? Would it
+never be possible for her to marry wealth and virtue together? And again
+there was that strange commingling of shame and exultation as she
+realised what a power she possessed to attract even such an one as Van
+Shaw, and try as hard as she would she did not drive out the scene of
+his declaration that morning. At any rate, it was genuine. Let him be
+what he had been, might she not awaken all the latent good in his nature
+and save him--her mother's ideas were very strict and serious. They were
+perhaps puritanical. But after all------
+
+So she restlessly went back and forth in her argument and only fell
+asleep towards morning, her heart and mind wearied with the whole thing.
+Before she fell asleep she resolved to have a talk with Miss Gray and
+make her tell what she knew. She said to herself she would at least not
+dismiss Van Shaw entirely until she knew even more than her mother had
+been able to tell her about him.
+
+But before the opportunity came for Miss Gray's confidence, several
+unexpected events occurred that made Helen wonder if she were in a land
+of enchantment. After what had already become a part of her history in
+this strange land, she might be pardoned, if, with her highly romantic
+temperament, she felt excited to an unusual degree.
+
+In the first place, Mr. Masters had word, that next morning after the
+snake dance, that he was needed imperatively at Tolchaco on account of
+the illness of Ansa, old Begwoettins' grandchild. This was Miss Gray's
+favourite, and she was eager to return to the mission with Mr. and Mrs.
+Masters as soon as possible. Accordingly the fastest team and the
+lightest outfit were pressed into service and a short time after
+breakfast Mr. and Mrs. Masters and Miss Gray were ready to take the road
+by the Oraibi Wash, hoping to make Tolchaco by the next afternoon.
+Elijah Clifford wanted to go but it seemed necessary for him to remain
+with Mr. and Mrs. Douglas and help pack up for the return trip. Besides,
+two of the chuck wagon teams had broken their hobbles in the night and
+wandered off into the "indefinite nowhere," as Clifford said, and until
+they were found and brought back, it was impossible for the rest of the
+party to hitch in and leave Oraibi.
+
+As if Providence had come to the special help of Walter, just before
+Masters had finished his preparations to leave, the Navajo runner who
+had brought word of Ansa's illness went silently to Walter and handed
+him a letter that had reached Tolchaco post office the day the runner
+started. It had a special delivery stamp on it to indicate the desire of
+the sender for haste, and after reading, Walter rushed over to his
+father who was helping Masters hitch up the traces.
+
+"Listen to this, father!" he said in great excitement, while Mrs.
+Masters and Miss Gray were getting into the wagon and saying good-bye to
+Mrs. Douglas and Helen. "Anderson writes that Blake, the assistant
+foreman, is sick, and if I can come on and help him work over the
+installation of those new Reimark dynamos before term opens, he can
+promise me a good place as second assistant in the coil room this
+winter. I know more about the Reimark than Anderson himself and it will
+be a fine chance for me. He says I can have full pay for summer term
+work. I shall have to start back to Burrton by the first, anyway, and if
+Mr. Masters can take me along now, I can get over to Canyon Diablo or
+Winslow in time to make the California express and get into Burrton next
+week."
+
+Masters gave a quick consent.
+
+"We can take four as well as three. Come on."
+
+Walter rushed his few camp things into his suit case, stowed it under
+the seat, kissed his mother and Helen, shook hands with Bauer, who was
+able to sit up on his cot in the near by tent, and climbed into the
+wagon by the side of Mr. Masters.
+
+Elijah Clifford was not present when all this occurred, and when he came
+into camp two hours later trailing the fugitive horses after him,
+Masters's wagon was a black speck down by the Oraibi Wash.
+
+Bauer told him of Walter's unexpected return to Tolchaco with Mr.
+Masters and Miss Gray.
+
+"Yes, I told you," said Clifford. And for a moment Bauer thought he
+could detect a note of pensive regret in his words. "I told you Walter
+was lost. It's wonderful what providences there are for some people.
+That professor in that school couldn't have figured on getting that
+letter here at a more real serviceable opportunity for Walter, if he had
+been a real first class magician. And did you say there was a special
+delivery stamp on the letter? That beats everything worse than nothing.
+That's the first time, I reckon, in five hundred years that a special
+delivery stamp was ever used on a Tolchaco letter. And just think of the
+way things cogged into the right openings to get that letter there by
+special messenger. Well, well, I wouldn't mind being in Walter's place
+myself if I didn't feel so necessary here. But Mr. Douglas can't drive
+these mustangs back to Tolchaco."
+
+He winked at Bauer good naturedly and hastened to inquire into his
+condition.
+
+"I'm black and blue," said Bauer, "but otherwise, sehr gut. This is a
+miraculous climate. My hemorrhage is slight, and I don't believe it will
+recur. I have no symptoms. I don't want you to delay the return on my
+account." Then he added after a pause, "How is Van Shaw?"
+
+"That fellow," said Elijah, "has missed breaking his neck by a miracle.
+His collar bone was fractured clear up to the last bone in his spinal
+column. Both of his legs were broken below the knee. He must have struck
+right on his toes when he fell, and doubled up on himself. He can't move
+out of here for some while. But I understand his mother has sent a wire
+from Winslow for Mr. Van Shaw to come on from Pittsburgh. She is pretty
+well upset by the whole business. She tried to thank me for saving her
+son's life and I think she was too hysterical and excited to understand
+me when I told her you were the party. She hinted that her husband would
+probably deed a railroad or two to me for saving her precious son's
+life. If they send the railroad out here I'll turn it over to you. I
+don't want it."
+
+"But you did save him," said Bauer with some feeling.
+
+"Well, no, I reckon I just preserved him. You had him saved, and I just
+took what you handed over and passed it up. But, what were you doing out
+there on the edge of that rock last night, anyhow? I forgot to ask when
+I was down there on the ledge and never thought of it again until just
+now."
+
+Bauer was spared the embarrassment of trying to satisfy Clifford's good
+natured curiosity by the arrival into the tent of Mrs. Douglas,
+accompanied by the tourist doctor who had offered his services to both
+Bauer and Van Shaw and had fortunately had enough of his repair kit with
+him to do all that could be done outside of a well appointed hospital.
+
+He pronounced Bauer to be in good condition and anticipated no
+recurrence of the flow for him if he were careful. Van Shaw was in a
+more serious case. He was suffering from a nervous shock and would have
+to stay where he was for some time. A room had been hired in a small
+stone house belonging to the government farmer, and Van Shaw was as
+comfortable as he could be under the circumstances. But he was delirious
+a part of the time and the doctor evidently believed his condition to be
+serious, if not critical.
+
+Helen received the news of all this from her mother when she came back
+from Bauer's tent. She was much shocked at the account Mrs. Douglas
+gave. And again, as during the night, she found herself dwelling more
+over Van Shaw's suffering than Bauer's heroism.
+
+The doctor advised two days' rest for Bauer before starting back to
+Tolchaco, so Clifford delayed the preparations for their start and
+during that time Talavenka came to see Helen, and Helen, with her
+accustomed enthusiasm, suggested to her in Esther's presence, a plan for
+going east and completing her education.
+
+Talavenka listened with perfect equanimity to Helen's glowing account of
+the opportunities for education in the girls' school at Milton. Then she
+said with more than a quiet manner,--it was a poise of all the
+faculties, that a white person seldom possesses:
+
+"You are kind, but I ought to stay here with my mother for awhile. She
+needs me."
+
+"But would she not be willing to have you go away for a little while
+just to gain more power for your people? Mother, would you be willing to
+have Talavenka stay with us this winter?"
+
+"I have already talked with your father and Mr. and Mrs. Masters about
+Talavenka and we are ready to take her into our home and treat her like
+one of our own circle," said Esther, who was chairman of the missionary
+committee in her church and a great enthusiast in all forms of
+missionary work.
+
+Talavenka turned her black eyes to Mrs. Douglas. Her face shone. The
+light of her Christian faith illuminated her countenance like a gleam of
+sunshine. It was so marked that both Mrs. Douglas and Helen were
+startled by it.
+
+"I do not know how to thank you. But my mother needs me this winter. I
+must stay with her."
+
+She said it so gently, with such a complete sense of joyousness and an
+absence of all thought of renunciation, that Helen was profoundly moved.
+There was no possibility of changing her mind or insisting. There was
+something about Talavenka's simple statement that was distinctly final.
+
+When the girl rose to go, Helen noticed the reddish brown water jar that
+Talavenka had dropped by the tent opening when she had entered.
+
+"Yes," she said, as she put the jar on her back after passing the cord
+through the ears of it, "I am going down to the spring. How glad I am to
+be so well. Jesus helps me to bear all things."
+
+She went out and half an hour later, Helen, lying on her cot outside the
+tent, saw her again coming up the trail with the swinging trot peculiar
+to the Hopi women, the full jar on her back, and she was singing, not
+the old song that her mother still sung, but a Christian hymn, "A little
+talk with Jesus makes it right, all right."
+
+Helen watched her until she vanished behind the first cluster of grey
+houses. Talavenka had gone back to her people for awhile. But her torch
+was aflame, the torch of that faith that is destined in time to kindle
+the grey rock of Oraibi into a beacon of illumination that shall give
+healing and salvation to all those darkened minds and make the desert to
+blossom like the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley.
+
+The second day Elijah Clifford and Paul began to pack up, ready to break
+camp the following morning and start back to Oraibi. Van Shaw's
+condition was not much changed except that he was more rational. This
+was a hopeful symptom and the doctor made the most of it, encouraging
+Mrs. Van Shaw all he could.
+
+Mr. Van Shaw was expected the next day, coming from Winslow. Van Shaw's
+friends, after learning that there was nothing special for them to do,
+had already made their plans to leave when the Tolchaco party went,
+going in company with Clifford.
+
+Helen was nervous and unhappy. She had begun to brood over matters. Her
+mother had not said any more after that night's talk, but she could
+easily see that Helen was still going over the same ground, and that the
+chapter had not yet been closed for her. The thought gave Esther much
+uneasiness and yet she thought it unwise to open the subject again and
+so maintained a discreet silence, trusting to absence from the scene and
+the return to Milton to do what only time could effect in the girl's
+mind.
+
+It lacked an hour or two of the time for departure the next morning when
+Mrs. Van Shaw came over to the camp with marks of trouble in her looks
+as she came into the tent where Mrs. Douglas and Helen were sitting.
+Mrs. Douglas was an energetic camper and had completed her packing early
+and was ready for the wagons as soon as the horses had been hitched in.
+
+Mrs. Van Shaw was a showy woman who had done her best to spoil her son
+ever since his birth, by giving him everything he wanted, simply because
+he asked for it.
+
+On this occasion she came at once to the point of her errand.
+
+"Mrs. Douglas, my boy wants to see Miss Douglas before you go. He says
+he wants to say something to her in our presence. He has been begging me
+to come and see you all the morning. Can you come over now before you
+leave?"
+
+Helen sat up a little higher on her cot, and her cheeks flamed. Mrs.
+Douglas looked at her, hesitated, and then answered Mrs. Van Shaw.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+"WHAT does your son want to say to my daughter?" asked Esther. The
+thought of a dramatic interview between them was exceedingly distasteful
+to her.
+
+"I don't know," said Mrs. Van Shaw guardedly. "He has been begging me to
+come and see you. Oh, he is very ill!" and at that the mother in her,
+mistaken and distorted though it were, in her training of the boy, broke
+down and she began to sob.
+
+Esther was moved at the sight, and after a moment she said gently, "We
+are all so sorry for you, Mrs. Van Shaw. The shock of it all must have
+been terrible for you."
+
+"I am just about prostrated by it. Mr. Van Shaw is expected to-day. He
+was in New York when the news reached him. But it surely is not asking
+anything improper to ask Miss Douglas to see my boy before you leave. We
+shall be obliged to remain here in this dreadful place until the doctor
+says Ross can be moved."
+
+"Will you see him?" asked Esther, turning to Helen, and speaking
+quietly.
+
+"Yes, I am willing to go," replied Helen in a very low voice. She
+dreaded and at the same time courted the interview. It had just the
+tinge of dramatic setting in it that appealed to her highly romantic
+imagination. She did not know what he wanted to say to her and she was
+not in the least prepared for the interview. But it seemed to her that
+it would be a piece of foolish affectation to refuse his request and
+especially since she would in all probability not have any occasion to
+meet him again.
+
+Esther went out of the tent and in a few words told Paul of Mrs. Van
+Shaw's visit and its object. Helen would have to be carried over to the
+government farmer's house. Clifford called up two of the Indians and
+with their help, he and Paul carried Helen over. Bauer, who was hardly
+yet fit to sit up, but had already climbed into his place in one of the
+chuck wagons, saw the whole thing from where he sat, and again his mind
+went into a whirl with jealousy and anger. If Helen's mother had told
+her of Van Shaw's character, how could the girl, in spite of all that,
+go and see him now? It seemed to him like an indication of something
+coarse and low in Helen's nature, something which contradicted his pure
+thought of her. He could not understand it, and being ignorant of the
+fact that Helen was going in response to Mrs. Van Shaw's request, he
+brooded miserably over the whole affair and sat there gazing gloomily at
+the little stone house into which the group with Helen had gone.
+
+Paul and Clifford and the Indians soon came out and went on completing
+their preparations for the departure.
+
+Meanwhile, in the little room where Ross Van Shaw lay, tortured in mind
+and body, a remarkable scene was being enacted.
+
+There was just room close by the door for the cot on which Helen was
+sitting, and the moment she was placed there, she was aware of Van
+Shaw's face staring at her. The sight of it shocked her almost to the
+verge of hysterics. She instantly controlled herself as she quickly
+noted the fact that both her mother and Mrs. Van Shaw were watching her.
+
+"I wanted to see you before you went away," Van Shaw was saying, and his
+voice sounded very weak and a long ways off to Helen as she saw the
+tremble of his hands and the uncertain glance he cast at her, so sharply
+different from his previous bold and positive attitude towards her.
+
+"We are so sorry for you," said Helen. "It was a miracle you were not
+killed."
+
+"Yes. Thanks to Mr. Clifford, mother tells me. I want to thank him
+before he goes. Mother, won't you ask him to come in?"
+
+"Yes, Ross. But do you think you can bear all this excitement? I am
+afraid it will be too much for you." The government farmer's wife, who
+was acting as nurse, added a word of objection.
+
+"No, it won't," he said irritably. "I want to see him. Didn't you tell
+me he saved my life? I ought at least to thank him for it."
+
+"I'll tell him, yes I will!" Mrs. Van Shaw spoke in the hurried, anxious
+tone of one who feared a scene if she refused his request.
+
+"Tell him now, then mother. Ask him to come in now."
+
+"I will. I will." Mrs. Van Shaw rose and went out of the room, leaving
+Mrs. Douglas and Helen staring at Van Shaw and wondering how he had not
+heard the news of his rescue by Bauer.
+
+Van Shaw turned his look again towards Helen. And she saw then, even in
+her agitation, that he was moved by the excitement of his fever. As a
+matter of fact, the doctor, when he came the next day, was in a towering
+rage with Mrs. Van Shaw over what he called her insane yielding to the
+request of a delirious patient.
+
+"I wanted to see you, Miss Douglas, before you went and warn you about
+that German fellow Bauer. He's been telling you stories about me, and
+trying to butt into my affairs and I just won't stand for it. You ought
+to know that his father and mother are in disgrace over a great
+scandal------"
+
+Esther could not bear any more. She stood up and started to speak, just
+as Mrs. Van Shaw came hurrying in with Elijah Clifford. Helen was
+looking at Van Shaw with a different look from that which she had given
+him when she entered. It seemed as if a veil had been suddenly torn away
+from the girl's face and she was seeing something clearly which she had
+seen only dimly heretofore.
+
+Before Esther could say what was on her lips, Van Shaw had gone on. But
+it was evident to all of them now that he was becoming delirious.
+
+"Bauer hasn't any business to butt into my affairs. He's a sneaking cur.
+I won't stand for it. I'll get even with him. I'll tell Miss Douglas
+about his family. She'll never look at him again after that. I'll cook
+his job."
+
+Mrs. Van Shaw looked uncertainly from one face to another.
+
+"Here's Mr. Clifford, Ross. You wanted to see him."
+
+"Clifford! Clifford!" Van Shaw turned his burning eyes on Clifford, who
+stood at the end of the bed gravely looking at him, and for a moment the
+delirium cleared and he spoke quietly.
+
+"Oh! I wanted to thank you for pulling me up that cliff. It was a mighty
+brave thing to do and I won't forget it."
+
+Elijah Clifford was not a cultured man as the word is ordinarily used,
+but he was more than that. He "sensed" things. He knew what to do in
+awkward situations. He did not know what had been said before he came
+but he saw in one swift glance that matters were in a delicate and
+critical state. He also saw in a moment what Van Shaw's condition was.
+He was not in a mental attitude to be reasoned with. So Clifford walked
+quietly up to the bedside, put one of his strong, firm hands on Van
+Shaw's trembling fingers as he had clasped them together and said:
+
+"If I had anything to do with helping to save your life, I am very
+thankful the good God used me. But your mother will tell you when you
+get well enough to hear it that you owe your life, not to me, but to a
+braver man, Felix Bauer. I can't help hoping--" Elijah said it with an
+indescribable accent of tenderness--"that when you get well again, you
+will make the most of your life to the glory of God!"
+
+For a moment Van Shaw looked up at Clifford in a bewildered manner, but
+as if he partly understood. Then he turned his head towards Helen and
+his glance wandered uncertainly about the room. Then he burst into a
+delirious laugh.
+
+"Bauer saved me! That sneaking cur! Why, he pushed me over the cliff!
+I'll get even with him! Butting into my affairs! I won't stand for it.
+His father and mother------"
+
+But Helen could not bear any more. She had cowered down when Van Shaw
+spoke the first word. Now she whispered to her mother, "Take me out,
+mother, I cannot bear it."
+
+Clifford simply said to Mrs. Van Shaw:
+
+"We had better go, Mrs. Van Shaw. If you and the nurse need any help,
+call us."
+
+He took hold of one end of the litter and Mrs. Douglas took the other
+and they carried Helen out. Before they were out of hearing, Van Shaw
+was cursing and swearing in a torrent of words that made Helen cover her
+ears as she lay back on the cot sobbing from the nervous strain she had
+been bearing.
+
+Clifford and Paul and the Indians finished the work of breaking up camp
+and in half an hour the party was ready to leave Oraibi. Esther had
+asked Clifford to wait until she went over to enquire if she could do
+any more for Mrs. Van Shaw, when she met her coming out of the house.
+
+"No, there is nothing you can do," she said, in answer to Mrs. Douglas's
+inquiry. "Ross was always that violent whenever he had a fever. Ever
+since he was little, he has been the same. It is dreadful what words he
+will use when he is out of his head. But I cannot let Mr. Clifford go
+until I know the truth about the German, Bauer. If he saved Ross, Mr.
+Van Shaw would not forgive me if--if we didn't do something for him.
+But I have been so confused during all this dreadful affair that I
+haven't really known how it all happened. I want to see Mr. Bauer, if
+you can wait a little."
+
+Mrs. Van Shaw was agitated and tearful. Esther could easily see in her a
+naturally good natured, kind hearted woman, with a superficial
+education, who had ruined her children by unlimited indulgence of all
+their selfish habits, A woman who had been brought up to believe that
+the greatest of all things in the world is success in getting money and
+ingenuity in spending it. With all the rest she was a woman of some
+direct force of character which, in times of crisis as at the present
+moment, asserted itself with considerable positiveness.
+
+She came up to the wagons and spoke to Clifford first.
+
+"Mr. Clifford, before you go, I want to know the truth about the rescue
+of Ross from that fall. I know you told me about Mr. Bauer, but I wasn't
+clear about it. Mr. Van Shaw would never forgive me if I didn't get the
+thing straight. He is very particular. And of course, I naturally am
+deeply interested in knowing what occurred."
+
+"There is Mr. Bauer, madam," said Clifford gravely. "You had better ask
+him about it."
+
+Bauer was in the same wagon with Mr. and Mrs. Douglas and Helen. On the
+return trip, in the absence of Mr. Masters, Paul was driving the chuck
+wagon which had been reloaded so as to allow room for Helen's cot in the
+rear end of it.
+
+Mrs. Van Shaw went over to the wagon and began to ask Bauer questions.
+
+"Is it true that you went down after my son before Mr. Clifford came?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"In the dark?"
+
+"There are no lights on the edge of the rock."
+
+"Did you see him lying there below?"
+
+"I saw something that looked like a body."
+
+"How far below was it?"
+
+"I don't know. I hadn't time to measure."
+
+"Mr. Clifford said something to me about finding you clinging to Ross's
+arm. Why were you doing that if he was lying on the ledge?"
+
+"He had turned over and was rolling off."
+
+"Then you were holding his arm------"
+
+"Until help came. Then Mr. Clifford pulled him back over the edge."
+
+Mrs. Van Shaw paused. Then she said abruptly:
+
+"My son says you pushed him over the cliff."
+
+"How dreadful!" a voice broke in and there was Helen, Her cheeks on
+fire, sitting up confronting Mrs. Van Shaw.
+
+"I know, Miss Douglas, he spoke in his delirium. But what were you doing
+out there together? Why should you and Ross be there?" she said, turning
+again to Bauer, who, when confronted with Van Shaw's charge, had turned
+pale and clenched his fingers deep into his palms.
+
+"I cannot tell you why we were there. I did not push him over the cliff.
+The edge of it where he stood, crumbled and he went down."
+
+"Why were you there with him? Can't you tell me that?"
+
+"I would rather not."
+
+Mrs. Van Shaw looked uncertainly from one to another. There was a
+mystery here. She was too much of a woman of the world not to know, and
+indeed, her son had plainly told her that he was infatuated with Miss
+Douglas, but what had this obscure German invalid to do with it? In the
+midst of all her questions, Helen broke in.
+
+"Mrs. Van Shaw, do you realise that Mr. Bauer risked his life to save
+your son? What he said about being pushed over the cliff is a fearful
+thing to say even in delirium. Surely you can't believe that, after
+knowing that Mr. Bauer went down the cliff to save him."
+
+She spoke with a passionate eagerness that was an expression of one of
+the splendid traits of her personality,--a genuine love of justice. Poor
+Bauer hardly realised that she was defending him, but he said to himself
+even then that he had never seen her beauty flame out so magnificently.
+And then before Mrs. Van Shaw could reply to Helen, he said to the
+astonishment of all in the breathless group:
+
+"I ought to confess to you, Mrs. Van Shaw, that just before your son
+fell over the cliff, I had a feeling of hatred for him so strong that
+I--I--think I had murder in my heart. I don't pretend to deny that I
+came the nearest that night to being a murderer in feeling that I ever
+came. But I was at least six feet away. I never put my hands on him. His
+fall was a pure accident. May I add that the moment he fell, my hatred
+seemed to leave me, and I had no thought except to try to save him."
+
+Mrs. Van Shaw stared at Bauer in astonishment. She had never met anyone
+in her circle of acquaintances who possessed such transparent honesty.
+But she was a woman who, with all her faults, had some rugged sense of
+honour and was more than an ordinary judge of character. She came up to
+Bauer closer and put out her hand.
+
+"Mr. Bauer," she said frankly, "I believe what you say. And I can't let
+you leave without expressing my great thanks for your brave act. Ross
+must have been talking in his delirium. But you know--I remember one
+German proverb in my schoolgirl exercises--'Jeder Mutter Kind ist
+schon?' 'Every mother thinks her own child beautiful.' And I couldn't
+understand how Ross could make such a statement. But why should you have
+such a hatred for my poor boy?"
+
+The question was one Bauer could not very well answer, and he did not
+even speak a word. Mrs. Van Shaw looked at Mrs. Douglas and Helen.
+Helen's cheeks burned. Mrs. Van Shaw was a woman of the world and she
+thought she understood some of the reason for Bauer's silence and
+Helen's confusion. But she was also convinced that something more than a
+jealous rivalry between two young men must account for the depth of
+feeling on the German student's part.
+
+She did not ask her question again but gravely said to Bauer as she
+turned to go, "Mr. Van Shaw will want to express his thanks to you. What
+will your address be?"
+
+"I suppose I shall be at Tolchaco this fall and winter. I would rather
+not have you or Mr. Van Shaw feel under any obligation to me at all. Mr.
+Clifford certainly did much more than I did. If he had not gone down
+there, your son would not be living."
+
+"We shall thank Mr. Clifford also. And we shall not forget either of
+you."
+
+She went back into the little stone house and a few minutes later,
+Clifford and Paul had the horses headed down by the Oraibi Wash, bound
+for Tolchaco.
+
+All through that day's drive Helen Douglas hardly said a word, even to
+her mother. She was going over the strange experiences which had become
+a part of her life since she had come into this desert land. The scenes
+at Oraibi would never become dim in her memory, and especially those
+which had occurred during the last two days.
+
+Her probing of her feelings in the analysis she was somewhat fond of
+making of herself resulted in a complete reversion of her attitude
+towards Ross Van Shaw. She said to herself she dated that change of
+thought from his words and actions that morning, and especially on
+account of his brutal attempt to "get even," as he said, with Bauer.
+Even allowing a great deal for his action as due to his mental and
+physical condition, the whole thing, Helen now felt sure, was an
+indication of his general character. He had been caught for a little
+while off his guard, and in that time, Helen had seen him as he was. And
+the vision she had caught of his perverted heart and mind was not a
+pleasant vision. She even shuddered at herself as, with burning face,
+she recalled how near she had come, on such brief and slight
+acquaintance, to giving herself to such a life, lured in great part by
+the glamour of that golden mirage into which so many of earth's brave
+and beautiful souls have hastened, only to find its sparkling waters to
+be nothing but dust and its promise of luscious delights of the senses,
+nothing but the dead sea fruit of bitter disappointment.
+
+It should be said in all honest judgment of Helen's experiences at this
+time, that the girl's final rejection of all thought of Van Shaw (who,
+before she had reached Milton, passed out of her history), was due to
+more than the revulsion she felt over his words in the little stone
+house at Oraibi. It was due as much to her mother's counsel, and in
+fact, to the entire atmosphere of a healthy, happy home life which she
+had always known, and in which Esther had trusted for the final outcome
+of Helen's choices. So that what seemed to her at that time to be a
+sudden act due to an accidental revelation of character, was, as a
+matter of fact, due to a life long training in a home which had
+established in the fibre of its whole system, underlying principles of
+right thinking and pure living.
+
+When, a few days later, word came to Tolchaco that Ross Van Shaw had
+recovered sufficiently to be taken home and that he would probably
+suffer no permanent crippling from his fall, Helen found herself simply
+in a mild way glad to know the fact, but that was all, and Van Shaw
+faded out of her mind even more quickly than he had blossomed into it.
+
+All through this first day's travel towards the mission, Felix Bauer was
+also going through some tumult of feeling over the events that had made
+history since the party had left the mission.
+
+He was sore at heart over much that had taken place and could not
+reconstruct his former image of Helen as at heart a maidenly, dignified
+girl, worthy of the most exalted worship. He said to himself that even
+after she must have known from her mother what Van Shaw was, she had
+gone to see him, to say good-bye, to encourage him, to--his mind could
+find no excuse for her and do what he would, he felt himself growing
+more and more distressed over it.
+
+Mrs. Douglas was a very wise woman and Bauer's trouble did not escape
+her notice. She understood the reason for it, but it was only at the
+close of the day, during the preparations for the night camp, that she
+found an opportunity to speak to Bauer alone.
+
+"Felix," she said, using his first name as she had begun to do of late,
+to Bauer's quiet pleasure, "I know what is troubling you now. But Helen
+did not go over to see Van Shaw of her own wish. She went because his
+mother came over and brought a request from him to see Helen. No, I
+don't think you need to know what was said there in our presence. It
+ought to be enough for you to know that I am quite sure Helen has passed
+the place of her infatuation, if indeed she has gone so far as to yield
+to such a feeling. I could not let you imagine that Helen was really
+lacking in real maidenly conduct."
+
+Bauer's face shone with delight. "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Douglas! I have
+been doing her injustice all day. You have no idea how relieved I feel.
+And I have been sitting in judgment on everybody. Oh, if I were a monk
+now, like one of my ancestors, I would lash myself bloody. What a fool I
+must be to think I have a right to judge others as I have. And I have
+let hatred and malice and revenge creep into my soul at the thought of
+Van Shaw. I don't see how God can forgive me."
+
+"He has forgiven a good many worse men than you, Felix," said Mrs.
+Douglas, smiling at him. "Don't lose any sleep over that."
+
+Felix Bauer slept like a child that night and as his habit was he
+wakened early and as he sat up and saw the figure of Elijah Clifford
+kneeling out on the sand, the same thought of God's benignant presence
+occurred to him which the same sight had roused in him before. Clifford
+rose and came in to make the usual preparations for breakfast.
+
+"I have been praying for Ansa. By this time the folks must have got
+there if the river is not in flood. We haven't had any runner bring bad
+news. I don't know what I'd do if Ansa should be taken. It would just
+about break Miss Gray's heart too. She thinks everything of that child.
+She says she is going to train her to be a great teacher for her
+people."
+
+Bauer expressed his sympathy and asked if there was a good doctor to
+come over to the mission from Flagstaff.
+
+"Yes. Or it's possible Doctor West will be there from Raymond. He
+sometimes pays us a visit about this time of the year. My! Wouldn't it
+be providential if he should come along for Ansa. And he could dissect
+you at the same time and like as not find out that your hemorrhages
+don't come from your lungs, and that you haven't got consumption any
+more than I have. The doctors sometimes make mistakes in their diagnoses
+you know. Would you feel bad to learn that you didn't have tuberculosis
+after all?"
+
+"I believe I would be able to bear the news if it was broken to me
+gently."
+
+"But maybe Miss Helen wouldn't pity you so much, eh?"
+
+"I don't want to be pitied."
+
+Clifford looked up from his fire approvingly at Bauer.
+
+"You're right, my son. Pity from a girl when you want something else
+from her is like apple pie minus the apple. It's pretty dry fodder. But
+say," Elijah abruptly changed the topic of talk, "What about Walter
+Douglas? He's a likely fellow, isn't he? Bound to make his mark, isn't
+he?"
+
+Bauer stared a little, not knowing why Clifford was asking the question.
+
+"Yes, Walter is going to surprise everyone with his talents one of these
+days."
+
+"And he's a good fellow morally and all that I suppose?"
+
+"He certainly is. I don't know a better. Anyone that has such a mother
+as Mrs. Douglas can't help being good."
+
+Clifford was silent while he adjusted various utensils around the fire.
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Douglas is an angel. Mr. Douglas will never have to buy an
+aeroplane for her. She's got her own wings. And some day they'll carry
+her right up to heaven." Then, after another pause:
+
+"How old is Walter?"
+
+"Twenty-four."
+
+"How old should you take Miss Gray to be?"
+
+Bauer was surprised at the question.
+
+"I don't know. I am a poor hand at guessing."
+
+"I know, because she told me. She is twenty-eight. How old would you
+take me to be?"
+
+"I have no idea."
+
+"I'm just thirty next Thanksgiving. When I was born in Vermont thirty
+years ago turkeys were only eight cents a pound. Now they are twenty-six
+and we can't raise 'em out here at any price on account of the cost of
+feed. I'd give most anything for a good plateful of turkey with stuffing
+and fixin's. But there's lots of things in this world we can't have. We
+must learn to get along on mutton and pancakes and canned ginger bread.
+Such is life."
+
+It seemed to Bauer that Clifford was a little sober over his philosophy.
+But during the day he was jolly and high spirited, keeping the whole
+company at concert pitch with his stories and fun. But through it all
+ran a thread of sombre hue as the thought of Ansa obtruded.
+
+When the river was reached the party anxiously scanned its muddy stretch
+to see if it was too high to ford. Big rains had come down from the
+mountains during their absence from the mission and the banks were
+pressing full. Elijah, however, thought it safe to make the ford, and
+after a somewhat exciting and perilous passage they got across and by
+night of that day were at the Mission where they were joyfully welcomed
+by the mission workers and the news that Dr. West had come in two days
+before, and had declared Ansa out of danger and rapidly recovering.
+After supper Mr. and Mrs. Masters, Miss Clifford, Miss Gray and Elijah,
+the Douglases and Bauer, and Dr. West met in the school room and held a
+Thanksgiving service. The last thing that night that Bauer was conscious
+of was the memory of Elijah Clifford's prayer. He had never heard
+anything to equal it for tenderness and exaltation of feeling.
+
+The Douglases were to leave for Milton in three days. The last day of
+their stay at the Mission Helen was sitting on the old cottonwood log by
+the river when Miss Gray came down and sat by her, going over some of
+the desert experiences.
+
+After a while Helen said: "We have not had any opportunity to talk over
+the matter I mentioned at Oraibi. I don't think it's necessary now."
+
+Miss Gray looked very much pleased.
+
+"I am more than relieved to hear you say that. If I had thought there
+was any danger to you--I would have warned you--I did not realise that
+there was any------"
+
+"There was, for a little while," Helen said in a low voice, not looking
+up. "It has passed."
+
+"Anything I could say now would only revive a painful memory. Only, I
+feel as if out of justice to what your mother may have said to you I
+ought to confirm it. Helen--if you had come to such an impossible act as
+becoming the wife of Ross Van Shaw, it would have been the ruin of your
+life. I must say this--Van Shaw was engaged to my sister during his
+first year at Burrton. She is remarkably like you in many ways. A great
+lover of wealth and luxury. Van Shaw broke her heart by his conduct. Let
+us not say any more. I did not mean to say this much." Miss Gray
+exhibited an agitation that Helen had never seen in her before. "You
+need not fear for me any more," Helen said earnestly. "I begin to see
+more and more the danger I was in. I am thankful to escape."
+
+She began to tell Miss Gray about the meeting between Mrs. Van Shaw and
+Bauer. That led naturally to enthusiastic comments on the bravery of
+Bauer and Clifford.
+
+"Your brother Walter said when he left for Milton the day of our arrival
+here that he would have given anything to have had the courage to do
+what Bauer did."
+
+"It seems to me that Mr. Clifford was just as brave."
+
+"Yes, only he insists that he had a lantern and that he was greatly
+helped when he got down on the ledge by having the lantern to brace his
+feet against. Did you ever see anyone so absurd or so--brave--as Elijah
+Clifford?"
+
+"No, unless it is yourself."
+
+Miss Gray blushed.
+
+"I am not brave. I am a coward in many ways. Why, I am down here because
+I delight to do this work. It is no cross for me. And--in other ways I
+am a coward. And--I am very proud. Tell me, Helen, do you think of
+Elijah Clifford as--as an illiterate man? Does he seem to you like--like
+an ignorant person?"
+
+Helen was astonished at the question and could not help noticing her
+friend's embarrassment.
+
+"No. It has always seemed to me that Mr. Clifford was a remarkably
+intelligent and refined character for one who had never had a college
+education. I would never think of him as illiterate or ignorant. He uses
+beautiful language. I have never heard such English as he uses in his
+prayers. And he is a good linguist. I heard Mr. Masters say only this
+morning that he didn't know what he would do without Clifford's help in
+translation."
+
+Miss Gray looked pleased, but her face glowed in anticipation of what
+she was about to say.
+
+"Helen, I am going to confide in you. There is no one here at the
+mission I want to share with me in this and--and--I feel as if I wanted
+to talk with you about it. Mr. Clifford has asked me two different times
+to be his wife, and each time I have refused. And each time it was not
+because I did not respect and admire him, but because I thought I did
+not love him and most of all because I felt superior to him in
+education. I have been to college. It seemed to me as if I should be
+marrying beneath my rank if I were to be his wife. Do you think I
+should?"
+
+"Should what? Be his wife?"
+
+Lucy Gray blushed and laughed.
+
+"You know what I meant. Should I make a mistake in marrying him or does
+it seem to you that I should run the risk of being disappointed in him
+all the time simply because I am college bred and he is not?"
+
+"No," said Helen frankly. "I believe Mr. Clifford is the kind of man to
+satisfy you in that respect. He is studying all the time. Have you
+noticed he has learned an astonishing lot of German from Baeur since he
+came? I believe he can almost read Hermann and Dorothea now." Helen said
+it with a significant emphasis which made Miss Gray blush again. And
+then she added--"Lucy, you said you thought you did not love him and
+that was the reason you said no. Have you changed your mind?"
+
+"Yes. Oh, I can't help myself! Let me tell you. That night at Oraibi
+when I first knew that Elijah had gone down there to rescue Bauer and
+Van Shaw I learned how much he meant to me. I believe I would have gone
+there myself if Mr. Masters and your father had not been quick witted
+enough to take the rope the workmen had left out there by the great rock
+cistern, the first one in all Oraibi. When the three men were pulled up
+you remember Mr. Clifford was the last. I know that I pulled with the
+others, but I believe I never thought of either Bauer or Van Shaw. All I
+cared for was Elijah. I blistered my hands, see!" She opened her palms
+for Helen to look. "But I never told anyone. And even when he was
+telling that night about it, I seemed to see him slipping, slipping over
+that horrible ledge and I just couldn't help actually putting out my
+hand to draw him back. They say that college graduate young women don't
+know how to fall in love and that they don't get married because young
+men are afraid of them, they are so prim and intellectual and superior,
+but, oh, Helen, I am almost ready to propose to Elijah myself. I love
+him so much. Isn't that dreadful for a schoolma'am and a college
+graduate, and especially after she has refused him twice? What would he
+say?"
+
+"I think he would say yes," replied Helen, delighted to be the confidant
+in this desert romance.
+
+"I didn't mean that. I mean what would he say if he knew what I have
+been confessing to you? I would lose his respect."
+
+"And gain his love," laughed Helen. "Lucy, I don't believe it is all
+hopeless. And you don't need to fear that you are too intellectually
+superior to Mr. Clifford. After you are married you will find that he
+will go on developing mentally."
+
+"He is my superior now in nearly every true thing," said Miss Gray. The
+blush was still on her cheek and the love light in her eye. At that
+moment she was recalled to the mission building by one of the children.
+As she left Helen she said to her, "I trust you to respect my
+confidence."
+
+Helen sat on the old cottonwood, her eyes on the river, her thoughts
+musing over her friend's story. She was so absorbed in it that she did
+not notice Bauer until he was near the end of the log.
+
+"Oh!" she said a little nervously and then quickly, "Won't you sit down?
+This seems to be the only seat in the park."
+
+Bauer sat down gravely and Helen asked him politely how he was feeling.
+
+Bauer's face lightened so that for a second he looked almost handsome.
+
+"That is partly what I came down to tell you. Dr. West has given me a
+very careful examination. He says any hemorrhages are not permanent.
+There is no reason, he says, why I may not entirely recover, even to the
+extent of going back to school again."
+
+"Will you go back soon?"
+
+"No, he advises me to stay here this winter. I can help Mr. Masters with
+the trading, handling the rugs that are sold for profit for the mission
+work. I begin to feel quite strong again."
+
+He sat there silently watching the thick muddy flow of the stream. His
+face in repose was almost stern. Helen glanced at it timidly and could
+hardly realise that she was sitting so near to a real hero, one who had
+risked his life to save an enemy.
+
+"I haven't ever told you, Mr. Bauer, what admiration I feel for your act
+that night, I think it was the most courageous thing I ever knew."
+
+Bauer turned his head and looked full at her. His eyes were, as Helen
+had once said, the most splendid she had ever seen. This time they
+looked at her with a calm sadness that compelled her own to waver and
+finally to drop.
+
+"Loben ist nicht lieben," said Bauer firmly. It was the nearest he had
+ever come to declaring himself, in words. And Helen was the most
+deficient girl, Walter always said, when it came to languages. She did
+not know German and did not care to learn. Miss Gray had laughed at her
+more than once on account of her obtuseness. So Helen now, with some
+heightened colour, said as she raised her eyes.
+
+"What does that mean?"
+
+"Loben ist nicht Lieben," repeated Bauer.
+
+"Won't you translate it?" asked Helen petulantly. "You know I never
+understood German."
+
+"I--can't," said Bauer. And to Helen's surprise, he abruptly got up and
+walked away.
+
+"Loben ist nicht lieben," she softly murmured. "I'll ask Lucy what it
+means. But he needn't have gone so. He has no manners. I do not think he
+is nice."
+
+That night after supper she found Miss Gray alone in the school room.
+
+"Lucy, what does this German mean. As near as I can pronounce it, it
+sounds like this. 'Loben ist nicht lieben'?"
+
+"Say it again."
+
+Helen repeated the sentence.
+
+"Oh! Why, it sounds like 'praising is not loving.' Where did you hear
+it?"
+
+"Oh, I heard it. I wondered what it meant. You know I don't care for
+German."
+
+"Nor for _the_ German?" Miss Gray ventured.
+
+"Nor for _the_ German," Helen said after a pause. And that was as near
+as she came to exchanging confidences with Miss Gray. But was there
+anything to give in exchange?
+
+She asked the question several times on the way home. Her good-bye to
+Bauer had been commonplace enough. He had ventured at the last moment
+after the party was seated in the wagon ready for the drive to Canyon
+Diablo to hand up a book to Helen.
+
+"Would you accept this to use on your journey? You may find it help pass
+the time. It's the collection of desert flowers I've been making."
+
+Helen was really pleased and expressed her thanks warmly. But nothing
+more was said except the regular good-byes as the Douglases waved their
+farewells to all the mission people on the little knoll.
+
+When she was on the train and started for home Helen found on
+examination that Bauer's modest volume was in reality composed of a rare
+collection of desert plants, and in the back leaves of the book were
+several photographs of desert scenes, including a dozen of Oraibi and
+the snake dance itself. She found her own person in several of the
+pictures, and the farther she travelled from Tolchaco the more
+persistently her mind travelled back to that enchanted land of adventure
+and heroism and love of humanity. She sighed to think that her own life
+seemed so commonplace. And always there obtruded on her mind the thought
+of Bauer as he sat there by the river looking at her out of his great
+brown eyes and saying, "Loben ist nicht lieben." And always as the days
+flew by and she resumed her special work in music at home, the figure
+grew more heroic and dignified the longer she mused upon it, while over
+all shone the desert sun and the white translucent light, with the San
+Francisco mountains calmly lifting up their cool blackness against a
+turquoise sky.
+
+Two months later it was Thanksgiving time at the Mission. Somehow,
+Elijah Clifford gradually became aware that things were going on that
+were being kept from him. Bauer made a mysterious trip to Flagstaff and
+when he came back, Mrs. Masters and Miss Clifford carried several
+packages into the house which Elijah never had a chance to examine. His
+Yankee curiosity finally got the better of him.
+
+"What is all this?" he asked Bauer one evening. "Is someone going to get
+married? They needn't keep it from me. But I would like to be invited."
+
+"You'll be invited all right," said Bauer with his rare smile.
+
+When Thanksgiving Day dawned, Masters succeeded with what seemed like a
+perfectly natural excuse to get Clifford to take a forenoon trip with
+him up to Touchiniteel's hogan to see the old man and take him a few
+luxuries for his dinner. When they returned, the Thanksgiving dinner was
+all ready.
+
+It was impossible to surprise Elijah Clifford entirely, for before he
+and Masters had stepped into the house he said, "I smell turkey."
+
+Masters laughed. And as Clifford stepped into the dining room everyone
+greeted him with a shout of welcome.
+
+There on the table in all its glory was a fourteen pound turkey
+surrounded by all the "fixin's." Elijah Clifford was simply overcome.
+
+"Evidently," he said when the mission family was all seated and were
+being served, "Mr. Van Shaw has sold one of his railroads and bought
+this bird to express his gratitude to Mr. Bauer for his recent trapeze
+performance. Otherwise I don't see how we can afford such hilarious
+luxury."
+
+"This is Mr. Bauer's treat to you and us on your birthday," said Mr.
+Masters. "Felix, I'm going to tell. Your modesty will not save you. It
+seems that our friend's incubator has begun its sales in fine shape and
+the first royalties came in to Mr. Bauer a few days ago. What does he do
+but come to me and tell me what you said the other day about wanting a
+taste of turkey again. So this is Mr. Bauer's treat. He insisted on
+getting everything down to the nuts and raisins."
+
+"You have all been so good to me that I couldn't repay it if I bought
+turkeys for every meal. And I don't forget, of course," he added with a
+grateful look at Elijah, "that I owe my life to you. I am not trying to
+pay even with fabulously high priced turkeys."
+
+"Well, of course, I had the advantage over you down there in having a
+lantern to brace my feet against. You hadn't a thing. Not even Van Shaw.
+But don't mention it. It was no trouble. 'Don't think of such a thing,'
+as Miss Gray says. And after all, I don't know what would have happened
+to all of us down there if the folks at the top hadn't let that rope
+down just in time."
+
+"Everybody is a hero in this country," said Bauer.
+
+"And the turkey is the biggest of all," said Elijah, who was doing it
+full justice. "We all hope Mr. Bauer's incubator will continue to head
+the list of the six best sellers. And say, Bauer, why not get out a
+special illustrated Thanksgiving edition incubator made to hatch out
+nothing but turkeys. At the price you must have paid over at Flagstaff
+for this one, it wouldn't take long before you could make Van Shaw's
+railroads look like a blind trail through the Grand Canyon."
+
+That Thanksgiving Day dinner was a memorable one at Tolchaco. Everyone
+was in fine spirits. Clifford kept everyone in a roar with his remarks.
+Bauer surprised the company by telling two funny stories from the
+Fliegende Blaetter. Clifford's sister laughed so hard she almost choked
+on a bone. Mr. and Mrs. Masters grew unusually witty. And Lucy Gray,
+while not in any way distinguished for any brilliant remarks, glowed
+with a quiet happiness all through the meal and looked so attractive
+that Elijah Clifford more than once shot an approving glance at her as
+she sat by Mrs. Masters and insisted on filling up Clifford's plate
+whenever a spot on it showed any signs of being uncovered.
+
+After the dishes had been washed by the gentlemen who gallantly offered
+to do that task, the ladies sauntered up the river to inspect the new
+site for the new school house which Mr. Douglas thought he could secure
+for the Mission.
+
+It was a desert day, clear and warm in the sun. Masters and Bauer went
+out to inspect some pottery recently found near an excavation for a
+well. Elijah Clifford busied himself at the little barn with some plans
+for an improved hobble to use on an unusually cunning and inventive
+pony.
+
+When he stepped out of the barn and looked over to the river bank he saw
+Miss Gray sitting on the old cottonwood log. The other ladies had gone
+back to the mission buildings.
+
+Clifford stopped where he was a minute and then slowly walked over to
+the log and sat down.
+
+"That was a good dinner," he said, a little awkwardly, as he looked
+first at Miss Gray and then at the river.
+
+"Wasn't it?" said Miss Gray with even more enthusiasm than the subject
+called for. "Did you enjoy it?"
+
+"Did I? I haven't got over it yet. Somehow I feel as if it would be
+wrong to eat any canned goods for quite a while. A sort of
+uncomplimentary reflection on Bauer. I wouldn't have eaten so much only
+I didn't want to hurt his feelings by appearing not to appreciate his
+treat. Isn't he a fine fellow?"
+
+"Yes," said Miss Gray. She did not seem very talkative and appeared very
+nervous for a young woman who had figured as a life saver on various
+occasions.
+
+"I wish the Douglases had been here, don't you?" asked Clifford. He had
+his knife out and, Yankee-like, was busy shaving pieces off the old log.
+It seemed to help him in keeping up what seemed to promise to be a
+one-sided talk. "Yes. I--I've had a letter from Milton. Would you like
+to read it?"
+
+"Sure. I always did enjoy Miss Helen's talk. I expect her letters are as
+interesting."
+
+"This isn't from Helen. It's from her brother," Miss Gray blushed as
+Clifford quickly looked up at her. "But I would like to have you read it
+and give me your advice."
+
+Clifford took the letter without a word. He opened it slowly and read
+it. Then he looked at Miss Gray with a puzzled look.
+
+"The young man seems to want to open a correspondence with you. That is
+certainly all right. But you don't want my advice about that, do you?"
+
+"Oh! I meant to give you this letter. It is the second one I received."
+Miss Gray handed Clifford another letter, and he gravely read that
+through slowly.
+
+"He seems to be making good progress," was Elijah's comment. "In the
+first letter he wants to know if he can write, and in the second he
+wants to know if you will be Mrs. Douglas some time. I call that going
+some. But it's no more than I expected."
+
+Miss Gray was almost crying.
+
+"Isn't it absurd? What do you think I ought to do? What would you say to
+him?"
+
+Elijah Clifford looked at Lucy Gray strangely. And then he said very,
+very quietly:
+
+"Miss Gray, do you think you ought to ask me such a question? Answer it
+out of your own heart. I have no business to advise you in such a
+matter."
+
+Lucy Gray gave him one searching look, as her face flamed.
+
+"Give me the letter," was all she said.
+
+Elijah handed it to her, and in some way their fingers touched as Lucy
+took the letter, and then she deliberately tore it into bits and
+scattered the pieces down upon the top of the log.
+
+A sudden light came into Elijah Clifford's eyes.
+
+"Is that your answer to it?" he said, moving over on the log a little
+nearer to Lucy.
+
+"Yes," she answered, and it is a historical fact that she did not move
+back any. But she said afterwards that she was sitting near the end of
+the log and couldn't have moved far without falling off and that Elijah
+knew it.
+
+"Then you don't need my advice? What made you ask for it?"
+
+Lucy Gray, prim school ma'am as she had called herself, answered between
+crying and laughing, "Oh, I don't care for him. Why, he is only
+twenty-four and I am twenty-eight. And I can never leave these people
+here. I am so in love with them."
+
+"With all of them?" asked Elijah desperately.
+
+"Yes. But with some more than others."
+
+Again a light came into Clifford's face as he moved up a little nearer.
+The bits of paper which had been poor Walter's letter began to fall over
+the sides of the log. But Elijah Clifford was pale as he said:
+
+"Lucy, I don't want to make another mistake. I have not been able to
+conceal my feeling for you and I realise the great distance between us
+when it comes to education. I'm not college bred. And no one feels it
+more than I do. But I'm not too old to learn. I'm only thirty. And I
+find my brain works pretty well when I have a motive. I can almost read
+Herrmann und Dorothea. And I've committed no end of Heine. I can say
+'Die schonste die Jungfrauen sitszet, Dort oben wunderbar' and a lot
+more. But--I don't dare ask you again to be my wife unless--unless--I
+can be sure that the differences between us will not make you unhappy.
+But, oh, if this happiness could be mine! You cannot love these people
+more than I do. Or yearn over them more. And we are not so far apart
+after all."
+
+"I'm sure," said Lucy Gray, looking up at him, tears flowing down her
+cheeks. "I'm sure, Elijah, that we are not so very far apart in any way.
+And if you want to be happy I am sure------"
+
+She did not need to say any more. Elijah Clifford saw happiness looking
+into his eyes out of hers and he would have been very much lacking in
+education if he had not then and there claimed his own.
+
+They did not hear Mr. and Mrs. Masters approach because sand does not
+echo under peoples' feet, but they heard Mr. Masters say to his wife:
+
+"I'm sorry we left the kodak up at the house. I've been hoping and
+praying for this for the last two years. And now my prayers have been
+answered, I would like to have some record of the fact."
+
+Elijah Clifford and Lucy Gray stood up side by side. They were not
+embarrassed nor confused. The light of heaven seemed to shine on them
+out of that Thanksgiving Day glow in the desert sky. Their happiness had
+a sacred divine atmosphere about it that checked even as joyful a word
+of congratulation as Mr. Masters was about to speak. Ansa had come
+running down from the Mission and seeing Miss Gray and Clifford there
+she had come up and put her little hands one in each of theirs.
+
+"Ah!" cried Masters. "This is the picture we want!" while Lucy and
+Elijah standing there by Ansa spoke of the years they were now to live
+together in the sacred union of husband and wife, consecrated heart and
+mind to the love of a neglected people, their human happiness
+intensified and purified by the service they were to give as one in
+answer to that which spoke to them even louder than their own earthly
+love--the sound of the High Calling.
+
+If, as is easy for the writer and reader, we agree to let a few years
+slip by, as they have a way of doing whether we wish to let them or not,
+we shall find ourselves again in Milton at the home of the Douglases.
+
+It is Thanksgiving Day again and Esther seems to have even more than the
+usual happy look on her face as she says to Helen:
+
+"Isn't it remarkable that Walter coming up from the Isthmus is going to
+bring Bauer with him from Berlin? The world is getting smaller every
+day."
+
+"We must learn to say 'Professor' Bauer, mother. You know Walter wrote
+that he has several honorary degrees conferred on him for his
+inventions. I understand he is held in high respect at all the
+universities."
+
+"He will never be anything but plain Felix Bauer to me, Helen. And I
+hope his honours have not spoiled him. I don't believe they could."
+
+Helen is silent as she sits down by the window which commands a view of
+the front walk. Time has dealt generously and kindly with her. The
+girlhood has ripened into the stately strong womanhood. Many suitors
+have come and gone, among them some noble gentlemen who have received
+their answers from her with sore hearts, but Helen still has not seen
+her ideal of the romantic days and her heart is yet--she says to
+herself--free--at least she has refused both wealth and high character
+for the vision she has cherished all these years of the nameless one
+who, so far, she says, has never appeared to her. And all through this
+testing, refining process of growth, she has developed into a spirit of
+rare strength and grace, of whom Paul and Esther have been increasingly
+proud.
+
+Two young men come briskly up the walk. Mrs. Douglas opens the door and
+rushes out on the porch as Helen rises to tell her they are coming.
+
+Walter laughingly lifts Esther off her feet as he kisses her and then
+turns to Helen. Evidently he has not broken his heart over that romance
+in the desert.
+
+First greetings over he announced Bauer just as Paul steps into the
+front room.
+
+"Professor Felix Bauer, F. R. G. S., F. S. S. K. L. G. X. Y. Z. and
+others. Isn't he great?"
+
+Esther simply says, "Felix, welcome. I do not know how to say
+'professor.'"
+
+Bauer lifts her hands to his lips. Helen looks at him as if she were
+seeing some new vision at a distance. Felix Bauer smiles in the old way
+and says:
+
+"Mrs. Douglas, I don't care for these titles. I would gladly give a
+bushel of them for one kind word from Walter's mother."
+
+He looks at Helen as he speaks and Helen notes his clear, strong accent
+and the self-control and ease of a man who has met the world and looked
+it in the face without fear and without shame.
+
+It is only when they are seated at the table that Helen has opportunity
+to note Bauer's strong face and figure, and wonder at the transformation
+time and testing have made in him. He still speaks in the slow
+deliberate fashion of the other days, but he is a full grown man now,
+conscious of power and Helen has to readjust her picture of him as she
+last saw him.
+
+As the talk goes on, Paul's probing questions, aided by Walter and his
+mother, bring out the facts about Bauer which his own modesty would keep
+in the background.
+
+Sent to Berlin to make special studies of new methods in lighting, he
+had made the startling discovery of the formula of the fire fly's
+secret, and revolutionised the entire system of city lighting. He had
+been careless of wealth. Walter drops a hint of thousands given to pay
+off old family indebtedness, or charities aided, of new enterprises
+fostered until Bauer blushingly begs him to stop.
+
+"Really, Mr. Douglas, I am no millionaire as Walter would make out. Only
+I have been permitted to help some this great tuberculosis movement that
+has been a great joy to me."
+
+Helen catches the vision of consecrated wealth and looks at Bauer again.
+Then later when they are seated in front of the old hearth and the
+lights have been turned on while a heavy snow falls outside, Bauer in
+his turn receives a surprise from her.
+
+He has referred to the old days and recurred to the many kindnesses
+shown to him by Esther and Helen and the mission workers at Tolchaco. He
+is delighted to hear of the marriage of Clifford and Miss Gray, but in
+all the reminiscent talk he is evidently preoccupied and looks often at
+Helen as a hungry and thirsty man would eye the full table from which he
+may be debarred.
+
+The clock strikes a late hour. He makes a feeble excuse to go and
+mutters something about not having observed the time.
+
+"Die Uhr schlagt keinem Glucklichen?" Helen smilingly observes.
+
+Bauer starts in surprise and leans over towards her.
+
+"You speak German?" he asks with a strange look on his face.
+
+"I have had plenty of time to learn it since you left us."
+
+He looks up and sees that the other members of the family have in some
+way become much interested in Walter's new plans of electrical dock
+openers which are spread out on the dining room table.
+
+"You mean since I left you sitting on that log at Tolchaco?"
+
+"Maybe that is what I mean," Helen says, and she is more agitated than
+she has for years thought she could be.
+
+"Then you know what 'Loben ist nicht Lieben' means now?"
+
+"Yes, I know that and--
+
+"The world has praised me much since that time, but it is an empty
+thing. I am a lonesome man, sitting alone with honour. 'Loben ist nicht
+lieben?' Is it not so?"
+
+The tears are in Helen's eyes. This man will win her yet. Bauer mutters
+again.
+
+"Was vonHerzen kommt, geht zu Herzen," and then forgetting that Helen
+understands he says as if talking to himself, "'What comes from the
+heart goes to the heart.' May I come to-morrow or soon and--tell you
+what is in my heart?"
+
+Helen smiles as she notes the old sign of distrust in himself that used
+to mark the old young Bauer she used to know. But she says with a new
+note of life in her own voice: "Yes, come to-morrow."
+
+"There will be much for my heart to tell thine," he says dropping
+inevitably into the endearing pronoun.
+
+And as he rises and goes away Helen follows his stalwart figure out of
+the doorway and then goes and sits down by the fire again.
+
+Her mother finds her there.
+
+"Mr. Bauer, Felix, is coming here to-morrow, mother. I know what he is
+coming to say."
+
+Esther pauses. Helen answers her unspoken question.
+
+"I am going to find my happiness, mother. It is the highest voice I have
+heard. I am not afraid to answer it."
+
+So with all who have fought and prayed and yearned for the overcoming
+life in this story, may they all say, "I am not afraid to answer the
+call when it sounds to me, the sound of 'The High Calling.'"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The High Calling, by Charles M. Sheldon
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