round the room on a chair, making impromptu songs as they travelled. They
toasted Billy Rufus again and again, some of them laughing till they cried
at the thought of Averdoopoy going to the Arctic regions. But an uneasy
seriousness fell upon these "beautiful, bountiful, brilliant boys," as
Holly called them later, when in a simple, honest, but indolent speech he
said he had applied for ordination.

Six months later William Rufus Holly, a deacon in holy orders, journeyed
to Athabasca in the Far North.

On his long journey there was plenty of time to think. He was embarked on
a career which must forever keep him in the wilds; for very seldom indeed
does a missionary of the North ever return to the crowded cities or take a
permanent part in civilized life.

What the loneliness of it would be he began to feel, as for hours and
hours he saw no human being on the plains; in the thrilling stillness of
the night; in fierce storms in the woods, when his half-breed guides bent
their heads to meet the wind and rain, and did not speak for hours; in the
long, adventurous journey on the river by the day, in the cry of the
plaintive loon at night; in the scant food for every meal. Yet what the
pleasure would be he felt in the joyous air, the exquisite sunshine, the
flocks of wild-fowl flying north, _honking_ on their course; in the song
of the half-breeds as they ran the rapids. Of course, he did not think
these things quite as they are written here--all at once and all together;
but in little pieces from time to time, feeling them rather than saying
them to himself.

At least he did understand how serious a thing it was, his going as a
missionary into the Far North. Why did he do it? Was it a whim, or the
excited imagination of youth, or that prompting which the young often have
to make the world better? Or was it a fine spirit of adventure with a good
heart behind it? Perhaps it was a little of all these; but there was also
something more, and it was to his credit.

Lazy as William Rufus Holly had been at school and college, he had still
thought a good deal, even when he seemed only sleeping; perhaps he thought
more because he slept so much, because he studied little and read a great
deal. He always knew what everybody thought--that he would never do
anything but play cricket till he got too heavy to run, and then would
sink into a slothful, fat, and useless middle and old age; that his life
would be a failure. And he knew th