ory.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE TEST

The people of Wareville had good reason alike for pride and for sorrow,
pride for victory, and sorrow for the fallen, but they spent no time in
either, at least openly, resuming at once the task of founding a new
state.

Henry Ware, the hero of the hour and the savior of the village, laid
aside his wild garb and took a place in his father's fields. The work
was heavy, the Indian corn was planted, but trees were to be felled,
fences were to be cut down, and as he was so strong a larger share than
usual was expected of him. His own father appreciated these hopes and
was resolved that his son should do his full duty.

Henry entered upon his task and from the beginning he had misgivings,
but he refused to indulge them. He handled a hoe on his first day from
dawn till dark in a hot field, and all the while the mighty wilderness
about him was crying out to him in many voices. While the sun glowed
upon him, and the sweat ran down his face he could see the deep cool
shade of the forest--how restful and peaceful it looked there! He knew a
sheltered glade where the buffalo were feeding, he could find the deer
reposing in a thicket, and to the westward was a new region of hills and
clear brooks, over which he might be the first white man to roam.

His blood tingled with his thoughts, but he never said a word, only
bending lower to his task, and hardening his resolve. The voices of the
wilderness might call, and he could not keep from hearing them, but he
need not go. The amount of work he did that day was wonderful to all who
saw, his vast strength put him far ahead of all others and back of his
strength was his will. But they said nothing and he was glad they did
not speak.

When he went home in the dusk he overtook Lucy Upton near the palisade.
She was in the same red dress that she wore when she ran the gantlet and
in the twilight it seemed to be tinged to a deeper scarlet. She was
walking swiftly with the easy, swinging grace of a good figure and good
health, but when he joined her she went more slowly.

He did not speak for a few moments, and she gave him a silent glance of
sympathy. In her woman's heart she guessed the cause of his trouble, and
while she had been afraid of him when he appeared suddenly as the Indian
warrior yet she liked him better in that part than as she now saw him.
Then he was majestic, now he was prosaic, and it seemed to her that his
present role was unf