tender note in his voice as he folded the letter:

"This man is well along in life. He hasn't youth to help him as you have.
See how he takes it and she's the only child he has. There are millions
of pretty girls in the world for you to choose from."

"I know it but there's only one Bim Kelso in the world," Harry answered
mournfully. "She was the one I loved."

"Yes, but you'll find another. It looks serious but it isn't--you're so
young. Hold up your head and keep going. You'll be happy again soon."

"Maybe, but I don't see how," said the boy.

"There are lots of things you can't see from where you are at this
present moment. There are a good many miles ahead o' you I reckon and one
thing you'll see plainly, by and by, that it's all for the best. I've
suffered a lot myself but I can see now it has been a help to me. There
isn't an hour of it I'd be willing to give up."

They paddled along in silence for a time.

"It was my fault," said Harry presently. "I never could say the half I
wanted to when she was with me. My tongue is too slow. She gave me a
chance and I wasn't man enough to take it. That's all I've got to say on
that subject."

He seemed to find it hard to keep his word for in a moment he added:

"I wouldn't have been so good a scout if it hadn't been for her. I guess
the Injuns would have got me but when I thought of her I just kept
going."

"I think you did it just because you were a brave man and had a duty to
perform," said Abe.

Some time afterward in a letter to his father the boy wrote:

* * * * *

"I often think of that ride down the river and the way he talked to me.
It was so gentle. He was a big, powerful giant of a man who weighed over
two hundred pounds, all of it bone and muscle. But under his great
strength was a woman's gentleness; under the dirty, ragged clothes and
the rough, brown skin grimy with dust and perspiration, was one of the
cleanest souls that ever came to this world. I don't mean that he was
like a minister. He could tell a story with pretty rough talk in it but
always for a purpose. He hated dirt on the hands or on the tongue. If
another man had a trouble Abe took hold of it with him. He would put a
lame man's pack on top of his own and carry it. He loved flowers like a
woman. He loved to look at the stars at night and the colors of the
sunset and the morning dew on the meadows. I never saw a man so much in
love with fun and beauty."