here may
have been in such experiences, it is certain that changes of the most
startling and permanent character were often wrought in the natures of
those who passed through them, and when McFarlane at last emerged from
this spiritual excitement he was a strangely altered man. He seemed to
find himself in another and more beautiful world. Looking around him
with a childlike wonder, he rose and made his way back to the cabin. He
listened at the door, but heard no sound. He entered, found the room
empty, and gave himself up to rude and unscientific speculation as to
the nature of this mysterious adventure. Nothing helped to solve the
problem, until at last he discovered the Bible, which the Quaker had
hurled at the snake, lying upon the hearthstone. It did not explain
everything, but it served to connect the inexplicable with the real and
human, and he carried the book with him when he returned to his
companions with his recovered axe.

That Bible became a "lamp to his feet and a light to his path." By
patient labor he learned to read it, and soon grew to be so familiar
with its contents, that he was able not only to communicate its matter
to others, in the new and beautiful life which he began to live, but to
give it new power for those men in the plain and homely language of
which he had always been a master.

The lion had become a lamb, the eagle a dove. He moved among his men,
the incarnation of gentleness and truth. Under his powerful influence
the camp passed through a marvelous transformation. From this limited
sphere of influence, his fame began to extend into a larger region. He
was sent for from far and near to tell the story of his strange
conversion, and in time abandoned all other labor and gave himself
entirely to the preaching of the Gospel.

It was as if the spirit of love and faith which had departed from the
Quaker had entered into the lumberman.

CHAPTER VIII.

A BROKEN REED

"Superstition is a senseless fear of God."
--Cicero.

The address of the young Quaker in the meeting house and the interview
with him by the roadside had opened a new epoch in the life of the
Fortune Teller.

Her idea of the world was a chaos of crude and irrational conceptions.
The superstitions of the gypsies by whom she had been reared were
confusedly blended with those practical but vicious maxims which
governed the conduct of her husband.

For her, the world of la