of the silent
cathedral through whose wide-spreading base and under whose towering
form a coach and six can drive.

The sun was down, the shadows were fast gathering, the great trees
were retreating one by one in the gloom, when Job found the little
one-roomed log cabin with open door where he had planned to spend the
night. Unsaddling Bess and giving her the bag of grain on the back of
the saddle, hurriedly eating a lunch, and gathering some sticks for a
fire in the old stone fireplace in case he needed one, throwing a
drink into his mouth, Indian style, from the spring just back of the
cabin, he prepared for the night. A little later, tying Bess securely
to the nearest sapling, he closed the cabin door behind him, rolled
down the old blankets he found there, and lay down to sleep.

How dark it was! How still the world! A feeling of intense loneliness
stole over Job, and then a sense of God's nearness soothed him and he
fell asleep.

It must have been after midnight when he awoke with a start, a feeling
of something dreadful filling him. He listened. All was still save for
Bess' occasional pawing near by. Then he heard a sound that set the
blood curdling in his veins, that sent his hair up straight, and made
his heart beat like an engine--from far off in the mountains came a
weird, heart-breaking cry as of a lost child.

Job knew it well. It was the call of a mountain lion. Again it came,
but nearer on the other side. It was voice answering voice. Bess
snorted, pawed, and seemed crazed. What should he do? He trembled,
hesitated; then, breathing a prayer, he hurriedly opened the cabin
door, cut Bess' rope, led her in through the low portal, barred the
door behind, and, soothing her with low whispers of tenderness, tied
her to the further wall of the cabin, and crept back into bed. Then he
lay and waited breathlessly for another cry, and thought all was well,
till in a distant moan, far down the road, he heard it again.

For a moment fear almost overpowered him; then the old Psalm
whispered, "He that keepeth thee will not slumber nor sleep." A sweet
consciousness of the absolute safety of God's children stole over the
youth; and catching, from a rift in the roof, one glimpse of the stars
struggling through the tree tops, he turned over and fell asleep as
peacefully as if in his bed at home.

CHAPTER IX.

CHRISTMAS SUNDAY.

It was Christmas Sunday when Job was received into full membership in
the quaint