on the host, "we will
bless Him of whose bounty we have partaken."

"Blessed be He of whose bounty we have partaken," answered the others,
"and through whose goodness we live."

As Mordecai repeated the Hebrew phrases, learned in his almost
forgotten _Cheder_ (Hebrew School) days, a great longing came upon him
and the tears coursed down his cheeks. To return again to this home,
to keep the customs of his people and to die at last with Jewish
friends about him and the Hebrew's declaration of faith upon his lips!
But, as he closed the book, his eyes glanced about the little room and
they grew dark with pain. The gun standing in the corner, the furs
drying upon the wall, Becky crouching upon the blankets--all spoke to
him of a life he had lived too long to exchange for the quiet
existence of which he sometimes dreamed. He rose, and, with an abrupt
gesture, pointed to a shaggy robe before the fire place.

"I have no better bed to offer you," he said, "but I know you are not
used to a soft couch. You must be tired from your journey. Becky will
tend to your horses so you had better sleep now, that tomorrow we may
start out early and visit Colonel Hawkins. He would see you before you
begin work on the cotton gin."

The cotton gin, the first to be built in Alabama, was completed in due
time, and Barrett and Lyons, their pack horses again loaded with their
tools, were ready to return to Georgia. If Mordecai felt any pain at
having his co-religionists depart, he was skilful in concealing it.
For, after his confidence over the supper table, he had slipped back
into his stoical reserve and not even the taciturn Lyon was more
silent or chary of speech in anything that did not directly concern
the business in hand. So it was merry little Barrett who alone
mentioned the occasion that for a moment had brought the strangers of
the wilderness together and had made them brothers.

"We'll be coming back again when we want a taste of Becky's good
stew--and a blessing afterwards," he jested as he swung himself into
his saddle and reached down to shake hands with Mordecai.

"Or to build another gin if the Indians do not molest this one and
drive me off," answered Mordecai lightly, but the jest lingered in his
mind. His life among the superstitious savages, his solitary hours in
the wilderness, had helped to tinge his shrewd, practical mind with a
strong mysticism. He tried to dismiss the matter; but, as he walked
back to his hut that