tterness of death.

Even with this terrible fact before him, he did not reproach himself
with his costly generosity. It was strange to him that he did not regret
it; perhaps, like that mountain, he had suddenly taken up life on a
higher level.

The sunset splendor was fading. The fiery chariot was gone, and in its
place were floating gray clouds,--the dust of its wheels, they seemed.
The outlines of "Elijah's Step" were dark. It looked sad, bereaved. Its
glory had departed.

Suddenly the whole landscape seemed full of reeling black shadows,--and
yet it was not night. The roar of the torrent was growing faint upon
his ear, and yet its momentum was unchecked. Soon all was dark and all
was still, and the world slipped from his grasp.

[Illustration: IN THE MIDST OF THE TORRENT]

"They tell me that thar Jack Dunn war mighty nigh drownded when them men
fished him out'n the pond at Skeggs's sawmill down thar in the valley,"
said Andy Bailey, recounting the incident to the fireside circle at his
own home. "They seen them rotten old timbers come a-floatin' ez
peaceable on to the pond, an' then they seen somethin' like a human
a-hangin' ter 'em. The water air ez still ez a floor thar, an' deep an'
smooth, an' they didn't hev no trouble in swimmin' out to him. They
couldn't bring him to, though, at fust. They said in a little more he
would hev been gone sure! Now"--pridefully--"ef he hed hed the grit ter
ketch a tree an' pull out, like I done, he wouldn't hev been in sech a
danger."

Andy never knew the sacrifice his friend had made. Jack never told him.
Applause is at best a slight thing. A great action is nobler than the
monument that commemorates it; and when a man gives himself into the
control of a generous impulse, thenceforward he takes up life on a
higher level.

CHRISTMAS DAY ON OLD WINDY MOUNTAIN

The sun had barely shown the rim of his great red disk above the sombre
woods and snow-crowned crags of the opposite ridge, when Rick Herne, his
rifle in his hand, stepped out of his father's log cabin, perched high
among the precipices of Old Windy Mountain. He waited motionless for a
moment, and all the family trooped to the door to assist at the
time-honored ceremony of firing a salute to the day.

Suddenly the whole landscape catches a rosy glow, Rick whips up his
rifle, a jet of flame darts swiftly out, a sharp report rings all around
the world, and the sun goes grandly up--while the little tow-headed