the near hills; and the Preacher was troubled till he learned
that it had not touched his mountain. Another railway came, and the town
grew big and bigger yet. There were those that feared that their
Preacher might leave them, for the needs and calls of the great cities
are ever loud and forceful. They said: "Our town is not big enough for
such a man; he will surely go to the city." But it was not so; for the
city came to the man and mightily grew about him.

* * * * *

Two years after the return to Cedar Mountain, late in the day,
designedly late, two horses might have been seen ascending the crooked
trail through the cedars that mantled the mountain. Familiar forms were
these that rode. They had often taken this path before. The first was
the Preacher; the second, the woman that had held his hand. But in her
arms was another--the baby form of their first-born. This was their
first long ride together since he came, this was the elected trail; and,
as the big, red sun went down in the purple and gold of his curtains,
Jim took the baby and led the way up the last rough trail, to the little
upland, right to the Spirit Rock. The red symbols of the Indians had
been recently renewed; in a crevice was a shred of tobacco wrapped in
red-dyed grass. It was still a holy place, accounted so by those who
knew it.

From the bundle that he carried on his back, Jim took a handful of
firewood, a canteen of water, and a church baptismal bowl. He filled the
bowl and set it on the lowest ledge of the Spirit Rock. Before the rock
he lighted a little fire and, when it blazed, he dropped into the flames
the tobacco from the crevice. "That is what they wished done with it,"
he said in reverence. When the thread of smoke went up nearly straight
into the sky--an emblem of true prayer that has ever been--he kneeled,
and Belle beside him with the little one kneeled, and he prayed to the
God of the Mountain for continued help and guidance and returned thanks
for the little one whom they had brought that day to consecrate to Him.

Jim wished it. Belle willed it. His mother, he knew, would have had it
so. There seemed no better place than this, the holiest place his heart
had ever known. There was no better time than this, the evening calm,
with all the symbols of His Presence in their glory.

Belle handed the infant to Jim, who sprinkled water on its face,
baptizing it in the form of the Church, and then added: "