,
and cross-cut saw. However, since you're not a fool, I intend to
continue to enjoy my son. We'll go around the world together."

Thus did the experiment end. At least, Donald thought so. But when he
left the hotel a few minutes later to book two passages to Europe, The
Laird of Tyee suddenly remembered that thanks were due his
Presbyterian God. So he slid to his old knees beside his bed and
murmured:

"Lord, I thank thee! For the sake of thine own martyred Son, set
angels to guard him and lead him in the path of manly honor that comes
at last to thy kingdom. Amen."

Then he wired Andrew Daney a long telegram of instructions and a stiff
raise in salary.

"The boy has a head like a tar-bucket," he concluded. "Everything I
ever put into it has stuck. We are going to frolic round the world
together, and we will be home when we get back."

IV

Donald was twenty-four and The Laird fifty-eight when the pair
returned from their frolic round the world--Donald to take up this
father's labors, The Laird to lay them aside and retire to The
Dreamerie and the books he had accumulated against this happy
afterglow of a busy and fruitful life.

Donald's mother and sisters were at The Dreamerie the night the father
and son arrived. Of late years, they had spent less and less of their
time there. The Laird had never protested, for he could not blame them
for wearying of a little backwoods sawmill town like Port Agnew.

With his ability to think calmly, clearly, and unselfishly, he had
long since realized that eventually his girls must marry; now
Elizabeth was twenty-six and Jane twenty-eight, and Mrs. McKaye was
beginning to be greatly concerned for their future. Since The Laird
had built The Dreamerie in opposition to their wishes, they had spent
less than six months in each year at Port Agnew. And these visits had
been scattered throughout the year. They had traveled much, and, when
not traveling, they lived in the Seattle house and were rather busy
socially. Despite his devotion to his business, however, The Laird
found time to spend at least one week in each month with them in
Seattle, in addition to the frequent business trips which took him
there.

That night of his home-coming was the happiest The Laird had ever
known, for it marked the culmination of his lifetime of labor and
dreams. Long after his wife and the girls had retired, he and Donald
sat in the comfortable living-room, smoking and discussing plans