commissions, if you are faithful to them. If you go to fight them,
they will probably crush you all in the end, and you will be left with
little or nothing. Better go slowly, young man."

"What?" cried Jeffrey. "Take their bribe! Take their money, for
fooling and cheating the other people out of their homes! Why, before
I'd do that, I'd leave that farm and everything that's there and go up
into the big woods with only my axe, as my grandfather did. And my
mother would follow me! You know that! My mother would be glad to go
with me, with nothing, nothing in her hands!"

"And so would I!" said Ruth, springing to her feet. "I _would_! I
_would_!" she chanted defiantly.

"Well, well, well!" said the Bishop, smiling.

"But you are not going up into the big woods, Jeffrey," Ruth said
demurely. "You are going back home to fight them. If I could help you
I would go back with you. I would not be of any use. So, I'm going
back, to the convent, to face my fight."

"But, but," said Jeffrey, "I thought you were running away."

"I did. I was," said Ruth. "Last night I heard the voice of something
calling to me. It was such a big thing," she went on, turning to the
Bishop; "it seemed such a pitiless, strong thing that I thought it
would crush me. It would take my life and make me do what _it_ wanted,
not what I wanted. I was afraid of it. I ran away. It was like a Choir
Unseen singing to me to follow, and I didn't dare follow.

"But I heard it again, just now when Jeffrey spoke that way. Now I
know what it was. It was the call of life to everybody to face life,
to take our souls in our hands and go forward. I thought I could turn
back. I can't. God, or life won't let us turn back."

"I know what you mean, child. Fear nothing," said the Bishop. "I'm
glad you came away, to have it out with yourself. And you will be very
glad now to go back."

"As for you, young man," he turned to Jeffrey, "I should say that your
mother _would_ be proud to go anywhere, empty-handed with you.
Remember that, when you are in the worst of this fight that is before
you. When you are tempted, as you will be tempted, remember it. When
you are hard pressed, as you will be hard pressed, _remember it_."

III

GLOW OF DAWN

Twinkle-tail was gliding up Beaver Run to his breakfast. It was past
the middle of June, or, as Twinkle-tail understood the matter, it was
the time when the snow water and the water from the spring rains had
already gone