done,' he replied.

'And when will that be?' I asked impatiently.

'When God chooses,' he answered gravely; 'and don't you ever think but
that it is worth while. One value of work is not that crowds stare at
it. Read history, man!'

He rose abruptly and began to walk about. 'And don't miss the whole
meaning of the Life that lies at the foundation of your religion. Yes,'
he added to himself, 'the work is worth doing--worth even her doing.'

I could not think so then, but the light of the after years proved him
wiser than I. A man, to see far, must climb to some height, and I was
too much upon the plain in those days to catch even a glimpse of distant
sunlit uplands of triumphant achievement that lie beyond the valley of
self-sacrifice.

CHAPTER V

THE MAKING OF THE LEAGUE

Thursday morning found Craig anxious, even gloomy, but with fight
in every line of his face. I tried to cheer him in my clumsy way by
chaffing him about his League. But he did not blaze up as he often did.
It was a thing too near his heart for that. He only shrank a little from
my stupid chaff and said--

'Don't, old chap; this is a good deal to me. I've tried for two years to
get this, and if it falls through now, I shall find it hard to bear.'

Then I repented my light words and said, 'Why! the thing will go sure
enough: after that scene in the church they won't go back.'

'Poor fellows!' he said as if to himself; 'whisky is about the only
excitement they have, and they find it pretty tough to give it up; and
a lot of the men are against the total abstinence idea. It seems rot to
them.'

'It is pretty steep,' I said. 'Can't you do without it?'

'No; I fear not. There is nothing else for it. Some of them talk of
compromise. They want to quit the saloon and drink quietly in their
shacks. The moderate drinker may have his place in other countries,
though I can't see it. I haven't thought that out, but here the only
safe man is the man who quits it dead and fights it straight; anything
else is sheerest humbug and nonsense.'

I had not gone in much for total abstinence up to this time, chiefly
because its advocates seemed for the most part to be somewhat
ill-balanced; but as I listened to Craig, I began to feel that perhaps
there was a total abstinence side to the temperance question; and as to
Black Rock, I could see how it must be one thing or the other.

We found Mrs. Mavor brave and bright. She shared Mr. Craig's anxiety
but not