bide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide!
When other refuge fails and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!"

Out on the lonely trail wending his way toward the purple mountain--the
silent way to the bunk-house at the camp--in that clear air where sound
travels a long distance the traveler heard the song, and something
thrilled his soul. A chord that never had been touched in him before was
vibrating, and its echoes would be heard through all his life.

On and on sang Margaret, just because she could not bear to stop and
hear the commonplace talk which would be about her. Song after song
thrilled through the night's wideness. The stars came out in thick
clusters. Father Tanner had long ago dropped his weekly paper and tilted
his chair back against the wall, with his eyes half closed to listen,
and his wife had settled down comfortably on the carpet sofa, with her
hands nicely folded in her lap, as if she were at church. The minister,
after silently surveying the situation for a song or two, attempted to
join his voice to the chorus. He had a voice like a cross-cut saw, but
he didn't do much harm in the background that way, though Cap did growl
now and then, as if it put his nerves on edge. And by and by Mr. Tanner
quavered in with a note or two.

Finally Margaret sang:

"Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear,
It is not night if Thou art near,
Oh, may no earth-born cloud arise
To hide Thee from Thy servant's eyes."

During this hymn the minister had slipped out the back door and gone
around to the front of the house. He could not stand being in the
background any longer; but as the last note died away Margaret arose
and, bidding Bud good night, slipped up to her room.

There, presently, beside her darkened window, with her face toward the
mountain, she knelt to pray for the wanderer who was trying to find his
way out of the wilderness.

CHAPTER XIII

Monday morning found Margaret at the school-house nerved for her new
task.

One by one the scholars trooped in, shyly or half defiantly, hung their
hats on the hooks, put their dinner-pails on the shelf, looked furtively
at her, and sank into their accustomed seats; that is, the seats they
had occupied during the last term of school. The big boys remained
outside until Bud, acting under instructions from Margaret--after she
had been carefully taught the ways of the school b