ouldn't build it, at least not for years yet, only that they
want to get this iron property opened up. Why, the road is to run from
Welden to French Village and there is not a single town on the whole
line! The road wouldn't have business enough to keep the rust off.
They're building the road just the same, so that shows that they
intend to get our property some way, no matter what we do. And I
suppose they will, somehow," he added sullenly. "They always do, I
guess."

"But the people," said Ruth, "can't you get them all to join and agree
to sell at a fair price? Wouldn't that be all right?"

"They don't want to buy. They won't buy at any fair price. They only
want to get options enough to show the Legislature and the Governor,
and then they will be granted eminent domain and they can have the
land condemned and can buy it at the price of wild land."

"Oh, yes; I remember now. That's what the Bishop said. Isn't it
strange," she went on slowly, "how he seems to come into everything we
do. How he saved my Daddy Tom's life that time at Fort Fisher. And how
he came here that night when Daddy was hurt. And how he picked us up
and turned us around and sent me off to convent. And now how he seems
to come into all this.

"Everybody calls him the Shepherd of the North," she went on. "I
wonder if he comes into the lives of _all_ the people that way. At the
convent everybody seems to think of him as belonging to them
personally. I resented it at first, because I thought I had more
reason to know him than anybody. But I found that everybody felt the
same way."

"He's just like the Catholic Church," said Jeffrey suddenly, and a
little sharply; "he comes into everything."

"Why, Jeffrey," said Ruth in surprise, "what do you know about the
Church?"

"I know," he answered. "I've read some. And I've had to deal a lot
with the French people up toward French Village. And I've talked with
their priest up there. You know you have to talk to the priest before
it's any use talking to them. That's the way with the Catholic Church.
It comes into everything. I don't like it."

He sat looking across the pool for a moment, while Ruth quietly
studied the stubborn, settling lines of his face. She saw that a few
months had made a big change in the boy and playmate that she had
known. He was no longer the bright-faced, clear-eyed boy. His face was
turning into a man's face. Sharp, jagged lines of temper and of
harshness were coming into it.