ack from the manse door, she said
softly: "Our Father in heaven was very good to us, Ranald, and we should
be like him. He forgives and loves, and we should, too."

And Ranald, looking into the sweet face, pale with the long night's
trials, but tinged now with the faintest touch of color from the
morning, felt somehow that it might be possible to forgive.

But many days had to come and go, and many waters flow over the souls
of Macdonald Dubh and his son Ranald, before they were able to say,
"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."

CHAPTER VI

A NEW FRIEND

The night race with the wolves began a new phase of life for Ranald, for
in that hour he gained a friend such as it falls to few lads to have.
Mrs. Murray's high courage in the bush, her skill in the sick-room, and
that fine spiritual air she carried with her made for her a place in his
imagination where men set their divinities. The hero and the saint in
her stirred his poetic and fervent soul and set it aglow with a feeling
near to adoration. To Mrs. Murray also the events of that night set
forth Ranald in a new light. In the shy, awkward, almost sullen lad
there had suddenly been revealed in those moments of peril the cool,
daring man, full of resource and capable of self-sacrifice. Her heart
went out toward him, and she set herself to win his confidence and to
establish a firm friendship with him; but this was no easy matter.

Macdonald Dubh and his son, living a half-savage life in their lonely
back clearing, were regarded by their neighbors with a certain degree of
distrust and fear. They were not like other people. They seldom mingled
in the social festivities of the community, and consequently were
more or less excluded from friendship and free intercourse with their
neighbors. Ranald, shy, proud, and sensitive, felt this exclusion, and
in return kept himself aloof even from the boys, and especially from the
girls, of his own age. His attendance at school was of a fragmentary and
spasmodic nature, and he never really came to be on friendly terms with
his fellow-pupils. His one friend was Don Cameron, whom the boys called
"Wobbles," from his gait in running, whose father's farm backed that
of Macdonald Dubh. And though Don was a year older, he gave to Ranald a
homage almost amounting to worship, for in all those qualities that
go to establish leadership among boys, Ranald was easily first. In the
sport that called for speed, courage, and