te face.

The man sought to exact a promise that until he was twenty-one, Boone
should "hold his hand" so far as Saul Fulton was concerned. Given those
plastic years, he could hope to wean the lad gradually away from the
tigerish and unforgiving ferocity of his blood, but Boone could only
shake his head, unable either to argue or to yield.

Then McCalloway sketched the seemingly irrelevant narrative of what had
occurred in China; of the peril of the legations. He talked of an
emperor, captive to court intrigue, and slowly the lad's eyes, which had
been until now too preoccupied with his own wormwood to think of other
matters, began to liven into interest.

"But thet's all plumb acrost ther world from hyar, though," he asserted
in a pause, as though he begrudged the arresting of his attention.
"What's hit got ter do with me--an' Asa?"

General McCalloway cleared his throat. It came hard for him to talk of
himself and of a sacrifice made for another.

"It has this to do with you, my boy," he announced bluntly: "I have been
offered a soldier's job over there. I have been invited to aid in work
that would help to stabilize China--and I have refused."

Boone Wellver's lips parted in amazement.

"Refused," he gasped. "Fer God's sake, what made ye do hit!"

"Because of you," was the sober response. "I thought you needed me, and
I thought you were worth standing by."

"Fer me!" The lad was trembling again, but this time not with anger. "I
reckon I'll be powerful beholden ter ye, all my life, fer thet--but ye
hedn't ought ter hev done hit. They needs ye over thar, too--an' thar's
monstrous numbers of 'em, from what ye narrates."

"I know it, Boone," McCalloway spoke earnestly. "I've centred some very
ambitious dreams about your future. The time is hardly ripe to explain
them--but you have a great opportunity--unless you throw it away in
vengeful fury. If you won't trust me to guide you--until you come of
age, at least--I had much better have gone to China."

The boy turned away, and in his set face McCalloway could read that for
him this was an actual moment of Gethsemane. Through his nature as over
a hotly embattled field surged contrary and warring emotions--and
between them he was cruelly buffeted.

"God knows I'm wishful," he broke out at length. "An' God knows, atter
what ye've jest told me, I hain't got no license ter deny ye nothin' ye
asks--but--" The end of his sentence came like a sob. "But ye wouldn't
as