a life preserver, and we got a good grip of that, and held
on until the boat took us all in."

The heroic action of the two boys made them famous in Halifax. The
newspapers printed columns in their praise, a handsome subscription was
taken up in a day to present them each with a splendid gold medal
commemorating the event; important personages, who had never noticed
them before, stopped them on the street to shake hands with them, and
what really pleased them most of all, Dr. Johnston gave the school a
holiday in their honour, having just delivered an address, in which,
with flashing eyes and quivering lips, he told the other scholars how
proud he felt of Frank and Bert, and how he hoped their schoolmates
would show the same noble courage if they ever had a like opportunity.

The parents of the little one they rescued were plain people of limited
means, but they could not deny themselves the luxury of manifesting
their gratitude in some tangible form. Accordingly, they had two
pictures of their daughter prepared, and placed in pretty frames,
bearing the expressive inscription, "Rescued," with the date beneath;
and the mother herself took them to the boys, the tears that bathed her
cheeks as she presented them telling far better than any words could do,
how fervent was her gratitude.

Deeply as Frank had been moved at being brought through his own generous
impulse into such close quarters with death, the excitement and bustle
of the days immediately following the event so filled his mind that the
impression bade fair to pass away again, leaving him no better than he
had been before. But it was not God's purpose that this should be the
result. Before the good effects of that brief prayer meeting in the
water were entirely dissipated, another influence came to their support.
Although he knew it not, he was approaching the great crisis of his
life, and by a way most unexpected; he was shortly to be led into that
higher plane of existence, toward which he had been slowly tending
through the years of his friendship with Bert.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW.

A day or two after the rescue Bert began to show signs of what he took
to be simply a slight cold in the chest. At first there was only a
little pain, and a rather troublesome feeling of oppression, which did
not give him much concern, and having applied to his mother, and had her
prescribe for him, he assumed that it was the natural consequence o