s
mother would live; the chief they had lost last year, the bravest and
youngest chief of all their tribe, he would live too; their little
children would live; all they had lost would live again.

So, when he would most have wished to be alone with his God and his
sorrow, he must needs lay aside his own bitter grief, and bring these
childish people consolation for their griefs, and in doing so the
comfort came to him also. For somehow, looking into their longing faces,
and seeing their utter need, and how eagerly they hung upon his words,
he came to feel the presence of the Comforter standing by his side in
the dark cave shadows, whispering to his heart sweet words that he long
had known but had not fully comprehended because his need for them had
never come before. Somehow time and things of earth receded, and only
heaven and immortal souls mattered. He was lifted above his own loss and
into the joy of the inheritance of the servant of the Lord.

But the time had come, all too soon for his hosts, when he was able to
go on his way; and most anxious he was to be started, longing for
further news of the dear one who was gone from him. They followed him in
sorrowful procession far into the plain to see him on his way, and then
returned to their mesa and their cliff home to talk of it all and
wonder.

Alone upon the desert at last, the three great mesas like fingers of a
giant hand stretching cloudily behind him; the purpling mountains in the
distance; the sunlight shining vividly down over all the bright sands;
the full sense of his loss came at last upon him, and his spirit was
bowed with the weight of it. The vision of the Mount was passed, and the
valley of the shadow of life was upon him. It came to him what it would
be to have no more of his mother's letters to cheer his loneliness; no
thought of her at home thinking of him; no looking forward to another
home-coming.

As he rode he saw none of the changing landscape by the way, but only
the Granville orchard with its showering pink and white, and his mother
lying happily beside him on the strawberry bank picking the sweet vivid
berries, and smiling back to him as if she had been a girl. He was glad,
glad he had that memory of her. And she had seemed so well, so very
well. He had been thinking that perhaps when there was hope of building
a little addition to his shack and making a possible place of comfort
for her, that he might venture to propose that she come out