look at Black
Log. And it's such a little valley, too, that it would hardly seem
worth looking back on when the rich fields of Kishikoquillas roll away
before one! The lone pine on the stone cap of Gander Knob waved its
farewell, and we clattered down the long slope into the great world.

[Illustration: He had a last look back at Black Log.]

"It's all over at last," said Tim, smiling, "and now I am glad I've
come; for Black Log is a good place, but it's so little, after all."

"I'm afraid you will find it bigger than a desk in Western's office,
and a tiny room on a cramped city street," said I.

My brother recovered his old spirit and refused to be discouraged by my
pessimistic view of his expedition. He laughed gayly and pointed
across the country where half a dozen spires of smoke were rising.
There was the railroad. There was the great highway where his real
journey was to start. There was the beginning of his great adventure.
I was the last outpost of the friendly land, and he was going into the
unknown. There we were to part! It was my turn to whistle and to
watch the wheels as, mile by mile, they measured off the road to that
last bend, where I should see no more of Tim.

* * * * * *

There was something strange in my brother's resolve to leave Six Stars
and try his fortunes in the city. Just as I had settled down to the
old easy ways which my absence had made doubly dear to me, when we
should have been drawn closer to each other than ever, and my
dependence on him was greatest, he announced his purpose. It was only
yesterday. I returned from my accustomed afternoon visit to the
Wardens to find him rummaging the house for a few of his more personal
belongings and stowing them away in a small, blue tin trunk that a
little while before had adorned the counter in the store.

"I am going to New York," he said, not giving me time to inquire into
his strange proceeding.

I laughed. Tim was joking. This was some odd prank. He had borrowed
the tin trunk and was giving me a travesty on Tip Pulsifer fleeing over
the mountain from his petulant spouse: for last night Tim and I had had
a little tiff. For the first time I had forgotten the post-prandial
pipe, and undismayed by the horrors of the famine in India or the
tribulations of Sister Flora Martin, journeyed up the road to sit at
Mary's side.

"Over the mountain, eh, Tim?" I laughed. "And is Tip going?"

My brothe