k for advice on all
practical details connected with cattle, horses, and crops. The breach
between the two men was an unspeakable grief to the lad, and all the
greater because he had an instinctive feeling that the fault lay with
the man to whom from the first he had given the complete and unswerving
devotion of his heart. Without explaining to Kalman, French had suddenly
ceased his visits to Wakota, but he had taken care to indicate his
desire that Kalman continue his studies with Brown, and that he should
assist him in every way possible with the work he was seeking to carry
on among the Galicians. This desire both Brown and Kalman were only too
eager to gratify, for the two had grown into a friendship that became a
large part of the lives of both. Every Sunday Kalman was to be found at
Wakota. There, in the hospitable home of the Browns, he came into
contact with a phase of life new and delightful to him. Brown's wife,
and Brown's baby, and Brown's home were to him never-ending sources
of wonder and joy. That French was shut out from all this was the
abiding grief of Kalman's life, and this grief was emphasized by the
all-too-evident effect of this exclusion. For with growing frequency
French would ride off on Sunday afternoon to the Crossing, and often
stay for three or four days at a time. On such occasions life would
be to Kalman one long agony of anxiety. Through the summer he bore
his grief in silence, never speaking of it even to Brown; but on one
occasion, when French's absence had been extended from one Sunday to
the next, his anxiety and grief became unsupportable, and he poured
it forth to Brown.

"He has not been home for a week, Mr. Brown, and oh! I can't stand it
any longer," cried the distracted boy. "I can't stay here while Jack
is over there in such a terrible way. I must go to him."

"He won't like it, Kalman," said Brown; "he won't stand it,
I am afraid. I would go, but I know it would only offend him."

"I am going down to the Crossing to-day," said Kalman.
"I don't care if he kills me, I must go."

But his experience was such that he never went again, for Jack
French in his madness nearly killed the boy, who was brought sadly
battered to Brown's hospital, where he lay for a week or more.
Every day, French, penetrated with penitence, visited him, lavishing
on the boy a new tenderness. But when Kalman was on his feet again,
French laid it upon him, and bound him by a solemn promise that he
shou