ed long with him about his future.

"I have no son, Ranald," he said, as they sat talking; "and, for your
father's sake and for your own, it is my desire that you should become
a son to me, and there is no one but yourself to whom the farm would go.
And glad will I be if you will stay with me. But, stay or not, all that
I have will be yours, if it please the Lord to spare you."

"I would want nothing better," said Ranald, "than to stay with you and
work with you, but I do not draw toward the farm."

"And what else would you do, Ranald?"

"Indeed, I know not," said Ranald, "but something else than farming. But
meantime I should like to go to the shanties with you this winter."

And so, when the Macdonald gang went to the woods that winter, Ranald,
taking his father's ax, went with them. And so clever did the boy prove
himself that by the time they brought down their raft in the spring
there was not a man in all the gang that Macdonald Bhain would sooner
have at his back in a tight place than his nephew Ranald. And, indeed,
those months in the woods made a man out of the long, lanky boy, so
that, on the first Sabbath after the shantymen came home, not many in
the church that day would have recognized the dark-faced, stalwart youth
had it not been that he sat in the pew beside Macdonald Bhain. It was
with no small difficulty that the minister's wife could keep her little
boy quiet in the back seat, so full of pride and joy was he at the
appearance of his hero; but after the service was over, Hughie could
be no longer restrained. Pushing his way eagerly through the crowd, he
seized upon Ranald and dragged him to his mother.

"Here he is, mother!" he exclaimed, to Ranald's great confusion, and to
the amusement of all about him. "Isn't he splendid?"

And as Ranald greeted Mrs. Murray with quiet, grave courtesy, she felt
that his winter in the woods and on the river had forever put behind him
his boyhood, and that henceforth he would take his place among the men.
And looking at his strong, composed, grave face, she felt that that
place ought not to be an unworthy one.

CHAPTER XVII

LENOIR'S NEW MASTER

The shantymen came back home to find the revival still going on. Not a
home but had felt its mighty power, and not a man, woman, or even child
but had come more or less under its influence. Indeed, so universal
was that power that Yankee was heard to say, "The boys wouldn't go in
swimmin' without their New Test