st would let him.

"I have not time to tell you why and how I know, but, believe me,
Margaret, there is no mistake. He is Ralph, the slate-picker,
of whom I told you, who lives with Bachelor Billy. If he should
survive this trying journey, take him immediately and bring him up
as our son; if he should die, give him proper burial. We have set
out on a perilous undertaking and some of us may not live through
it. I write this note in case I should not see you again. It will
be found on my person. Do not allow any one to persuade you that
this boy is not our son. I _know_ he is. I send love and greeting
to you. I pray for God's mercy and blessing on you and on our
children.

"ROBERT."

CHAPTER XXI.

A PERILOUS PASSAGE.

For many minutes Ralph stood, like one in a dream, holding the slip of
paper tightly in his grasp. Then there came upon him, not suddenly,
but very gently and sweetly, as the morning sunlight breaks into a
western valley, the broad assurance that he was Robert Burnham's son.
Here was the declaration of that fact over the man's own signature.
That was enough; there was no need for him to question the writer's
sources of knowledge. Robert Burnham had been his ideal of truth and
honor; he would have believed his lightest word against the solemn
asseveration of thousands.

The flimsy lie coined by Rhyming Joe no longer had place in his mind.
He cared nothing now for the weakness of Sharpman, for the cunning of
Craft, for the verdict of the jury, for the judgment of the court; he
_knew_, at last, that he was Robert Burnham's son, and no power on
earth could have shaken that belief by the breadth of a single hair.

The scene on the descending carriage the day his father died came back
into his mind. He thought how the man had grasped his hands, crying,
in a voice deep and earnest with conviction:--

"Ralph! Ralph! I have found you!"

He had not understood it then; he knew now what it meant.

He raised the paper to the level of his eyes, and read, again and
again, the convincing words:--

"Do not allow any one to persuade you that this boy is not our
son. I _know_ he is."

Then Ralph felt again that honest pride in his blood and in his
name, and that high ambition to be worthy of his parentage, that had
inspired him in the days gone by. Again he looked forward into the
bright future, to the large fulfilment of all his hopes and desires,