of his light blue eyes; with Christ, and these things, Joseph
Winthrop contrived to be a very good man and a very good bishop.

But to-day he was not content with things. He had done one thing in
Albany, or rather, he would have said, he had seen it done. He had
appealed to the conscience of the people of the State. And the
conscience of the people had replied in no mistakable terms that the
U. & M. Railroad must not dare to drive the people of the hills from
their homes for the sake of what might lie beneath their land. Then
the conscience of the people of the State had gone off about its
business, as the public conscience has a way of doing. The public
would forget. The public always forgets. He had furnished it with a
mild sensation which had aroused it for a time, a matter of a few days
at most. He did not hope for even the proverbial nine days. But the
railroad would not forget. It never slept. For there were men behind
it who said, and kept on saying, that they must have results.

He was sure that the railroad would strike back. And it would strike
in some way that would be effective, but that yet would hide the hand
that struck.

Thirty miles to the right of him as he rode north lay the line of the
first hills. Beyond them stood the softly etched outlines of the
mountains, their white-blue tones blending gently into the deep blue
of the sky behind them.

Forty miles away he could make out the break in the line where Old
Forge lay and the Chain began. Beyond that lay Bald Mountain and the
divide. But he could not see Bald Mountain. That was strange. The day
was very clear. He had noticed that there had been no dew that
morning. There might have been a little haze on the hills in the early
morning. But this sun would have cleared that all away by now.

Bald Mountain was as one of the points of the compass on his journey
up this side of his diocese. He had never before missed it on a fair
day. It was something more to him than a mere bare rock set on the top
of other rocks. It was one of his marking posts. And when you remember
that his was a charge of souls scattered over twenty thousand square
miles of broken country, you will see that he had need of marking
posts.

Bald Mountain was the limit of the territory which he could reach from
the western side of his diocese. When he had to go into the country to
the east of the mountain he must go all the way south to Albany and
around by North Creek or he must g