ward St. Ange and the one absorbing passion
of his life.

The outlook of the Solitude at four in the morning was not an altogether
cheerful one even to ambitious youth. Indeed there was little, if any,
outlook.

Blackness around; cold starlight overhead. Snow and ice everywhere
except on the trail that a "V" plow had made through the forest.

It was cruelly still and lonely. "Gawd," said Billy raising his eyes to
the emptiness above him, "you see me to the end of this, and, by gosh!
I'll swear to go to Hillcrest to school."

From irreligious depravity, Billy had risen to reverent heights, and
Hillcrest restraint was beautiful in his thought, as a method of
preparing him for--Her.

A fear he had never known had birth in Billy's heart then as he slipped
and slid down the icy trail that had been flooded and frozen for the
passage of the logs. Even his unprotected boyhood had been shielded from
four-o'clock journeys in the wintry woods heretofore.

The only help Billy could draw from the situation was, that so far he
could refrain from whistling. When in this tense state a boy is reduced
to whistling all hope for strength is gone.

A distant groan; swish! ah! ah! and crash! rent the stillness. The boy
drew his breath in sharp.

"D---- blast that tree!" gurgled he, "what did it have to fall for now?"

Suddenly a deer darted across the trail and turned its wondering eyes on
the small brother of the woods. Billy's spirits rose. The wild things
were friends. The boy's depravity had always been redeemed by a lack of
cruelty.

A little farther on the way, Billy seated himself on a fallen log, and
cheered his inner man by a "bite of breakfast." Presently a shy, wild
creature drew near; took note and courage and scurried to Billy's feet.
With generous hand the boy shared his early meal, and made a familiar
noise that further won the little animal's confidence.

Billy had his plans well laid. There was a lumberman's hut a day's walk
from the camp; he must make that by night. There would be a rough bed
and chopped wood; he could sleep and rest and then, if all went well, he
ought to make St. Ange by the end of the following day, particularly if
he got a "lift," which was not impossible.

Just then, for the morning was beginning to show through the gaunt
trees, a bird-note sounded. Billy rose quickly--there was no time to
waste. Sometimes a bird sounded that warning when a storm was near. It
would never do for him to fa