eers. At the words--

"In the desert let me labor,
On the mountain let me tell,"

her beautiful voice rose above the school, and Gretchen's fingers trembled
as she played the air.

As the lady rode away, Gretchen felt tears coming into her eyes. The
school was dismissed, and the pupils went away, but Gretchen lingered
behind. She told Benjamin to go to the lodge, and that she would follow
him after she had had a talk with the master.

"That song is beautiful," said Gretchen. "'In the desert let me labor.'
That is what I would like to do all my life. Do you suppose that I could
become a teacher among the Indians like Mrs. Spaulding? It would make me
perfectly happy if I could. If I were to study hard, would you help me to
find such a place in life?"

Gretchen's large eyes, filled with tears, were bent earnestly on the face
of Mr. Mann.

"Yes," he said, "and if I can inspire you only to follow me in such work,
it will repay me for an unknown grave in the forests of the Columbia."

Gretchen started; she trembled she knew not why, then buried her face in
her arms on the rude log desk and sobbed.

She raised her head at last, and went out, singing--

"In the desert let me labor."

It was a glorious sundown in autumn. The burning disk of the sun hung in
clouds of pearl like an oriel-window in a magnificent temple. Black
shadows fell on the placid waters of the Columbia, and in the limpid air
under the bluffs Indians fished for salmon, and ducks and grebes sported
in river weeds.

Marlowe Mann went away from the log school-house that night a happy man.
He had seen that his plans in life were already budding. He cared little
for himself, but only for the cause to which he devoted his life--to begin
Christian education in the great empire of Oregon.

But how unexpected this episode was, and how far from his early dreams!
His spirit had inspired first of all this orphan girl from the Rhine, who
had been led here by a series of strange events. This girl had learned
faith from her father's prayers. On the Rhine she had never so much as
heard of the Columbia--the new Rhine of the sundown seas.

CHAPTER XIII.

A WARNING.

One evening, as Gretchen was sitting outside of the lodge, she saw the
figure of a woman moving cautiously about in the dim openings of the
fir-trees. It was not the form of an Indian woman--its movement was
mysterious. Gretchen started up and stood looking into the darkening