ively, "it's all right!"

"Are you sure?" asked David.

"Certainly; I cannot be mistaken."

"I don't know," said David. "Let me jump off and run to that light
yonder; there must be a cabin there."

"Oh, we can't stop for all that," said Jack. "I honestly believe this
is the traveled road, David; can't you trust me?"

"But your honestly believing it, doesn't make it __," protested David.

"I haven't a doubt of it, Dave, you be still," cried Jack angrily.

"I think we ought to ask, so as to be sure," persisted David.

But Jack whipped up and poor David's words went to the winds, as gust
after gust of the coming shower roared through the forest, and Jack
urged the horse to all the speed which her heavy load would allow.

The self-willed lad was well pleased with his hasty decision, and the
farther he went, the more and more convinced was he that it was the
right way.

Presently the roaring of Bounding Brook arose above the noise of the
tempest.

"We shall be over the bridge in a jiffy," cried Jack, "and then, old
fellow, what will you say?"

"I'd like to feel myself safely over," muttered David, when, before the
other could reply, Jack, David, horse, and meal went floundering into
the raging waters of the swollen stream. It was pitch dark; the storm
was on them, and they were miles from human help.

The first few moments of horrible suspense can scarcely be expressed.
Jack at last found himself anchored on a log of drift-wood, the icy
waters breaking over him, and the bridle still fast in his hand.

"David!" he shouted at the top of his voice, "David!"

"The Lord have mercy!" cried David, "I'm somewhere."

[Illustration: "_In the raging waters of the swollen stream._"]

The meal? ah, that was making a pudding in some wild eddy of the
Bounding Brook far below.

"No matter what a man believes, provided he's sincere," cried poor Jack,
thoroughly drenched and humbled. "It's the biggest lie the devil ever
got up."

"It _does_ matter. _Being right_ is the main thing. Sincerity doesn't
save a fellow from the tremendous consequences of being wrong. It can't
get him out of trouble. He's obliged to endure it, no matter how
sincere he had been.

"Didn't I honestly believe I was on the right road, when I was like
going to perdition all the time?"

The experience of that night completely and forever cured poor Jack of a
common error which has brought many a poor soul into the wild surges of
unbelief and irrel