have seen it in your
face."

"But----" said Steve as promptly, and with a compelling earnestness in
his voice that made the older man hold himself in restraint. "Mr.
Polk, I must tell you something before we go any further in this
matter. My barren boyhood has never faded from my mind. I cannot put
it from me. I live it again in the thought of every little child
hidden away in the mountains in ignorance and squalor.

"There may be little ones of my own blood in the Hollow Hut home," he
added, and his voice dropped into a deep intensity which held them
both motionless for a moment; then, for relief, breaking it again with
that smile, he said: "I suppose it is the survival of our feudal
mountain blood in me which makes me ready to go back to fight, bleed
and die for my own."

"It is simply a Quixotic idea you have gotten into your head that you
should go back to the mountains and spend your life trying to help
your people," Mr. Polk replied emphatically.

"I don't deny you may be right," said Steve patiently, "but I got the
idea fixed when I was a boy there at school having privileges which
were denied so many, and you know one is very impressionable in early
youth, and I confess that though for many pleasant reasons I have
wanted to shake it off, I have been unable to do so."

This roused Mr. Polk to instant combat. He rose and strode the
floor.

Mrs. Polk stood in the doorway an instant just then, but wisely and
noiselessly slipped away.

"That's all right to want to help your own, but the practical way to
do it is with money," he said vehemently.

"I am not entirely sure," returned Steve slowly. "I confess I may be
mistaken--but I have thought and thought over this ever since you
first proposed two years ago that I should go into business with you,
and though, as I have said, I am still uncertain, I believe I ought to
go there and work for my people. It will be ten years at least before
I can do much in a monetary way, but I can begin teaching at once.
Besides," he hurried on before Mr. Polk could speak, "people there
need indoctrination,--inoculating so to speak, with the idea of
education as much as they need money, and no one can do this so well
as one of their own. Thanks to you, the best friend any boy ever had,"
he went on, his voice breaking a little, "I have had advantages which
have fallen to the lot of few mountain boys, and I feel that my
responsibility is tremendous."

"Yes," said Mr. Polk, "b