." Harry roused himself and tried to
close his mind against the warm, glowing picture. "Yes--yes. It draws
well. I'm inclined to be a bit proud, although I never could have done
it if you had not given me the lessons."

"It's art, my boy. To build a good fireplace is just that. Did you
ever think that the whole world--and the welfare of it--centers just
around that;--the fireplace and the hearth--or what stands for it in
these days--maybe a little hole in the wall with a smudge of coal in
it, as they have in the towns--but it's the hearth and the cradle
beside it--and--the mother."

Larry's voice died almost to a whisper, and his chin dropped on his
breast, and his eyes gazed on the burning logs; and Harry, sitting
beside him, gazed also at the same logs, but the pictures wrought in
the alchemy of their souls were very different.

To Harry it was a sweet, oval face--a flush from the heat of the fire
more on the smooth cheek that was toward it than on the other, and
warm flame flashes in the large eyes that looked up at him from time
to time, while the slender figure bent a little forward to see the
better, as the wonderful hands kept up the never ceasing motion. A
white linen cloth spread over her lap cast a clearer, more rosy light
under her chin and brought out the strength of it and the delicate
curves of it, which Harry longed even to dare to look upon in the
rarest stolen intervals, without the clamor and outcry in his heart.
It was always the same--the cry of Cain in the wilderness. Would God
it might some day cease! What to him might be the hearth fire and the
cradle, and the mother, that the big man should dwell on them thus?
What had they meant in Larry Kildene's life, he who had lived for
twenty years the life of a hermit, and had forsworn women forever, as
he said?

"I tell ye, lad, there's a thing I would say to you--before I leave,
but it's sore to touch upon." Harry made a deprecating gesture. "No,
it's best I tell you. I--I'll come back--never fear--it's my plan to
come back, but in this life you may count on nothing for a surety.
I've learned that, and to prove it, look at me. I made sure, never
would I open my heart again to think on my fellow beings, but as
aliens to my life, and I've lived it out for twenty years, and thought
to hold out to the end. I held the Indians at bay through their
superstitions, and they would no more dare to cross my path with
hostile intent than they would dare take the