They slowly climbed the hill path, Murray stopping to cut himself a stout staff in lieu of the cane he no longer used. "I shall always be lame," he said to Jane, "but I ’m not going to depend on canes any longer except for such special occasions as this. Do you know, I think I ’m growing a shade brawnier--thanks to Peter’s training." "I ’m sure you are; you look it," responded Jane, warmly, "and I ’m so glad." "There has been wonderful work done in the world by people in ill health. But I ’m afraid I could never be a Carlyle or a Stevenson, no matter how bright the fires of genius burned. They worked for the love of it, but when the task a fellow sees before him is one he dislikes, he certainly needs the backing of a sound body." As they attained the top of the hill, panting a little for breath, Murray stared ahead into the hemlock grove. "That ’s a cool-looking spot. Can’t we sit down there a few minutes? I ’ll have to rest a bit before I do more," he urged. "It’s three years since I climbed a hill like that--just the day before I had my accident. I seem to have got started on the uninteresting subject of myself, so I may as well go on a little further and tell you my plans about the same chap, if you don’t mind listening." "I ’d love to hear them. Here’s a fine mossy spot, and two trees to lean against," and Jane dropped at the foot of one of the trees she had pointed out. Murray, casting aside his stick, threw himself down at full length near by, his arms clasped under his head. "Ah, this is great!" he murmured. "Smell those balsams? It makes one want to live outdoors. And that’s what I’m thinking of doing." "Really? How? Will you pitch a tent on the lawn? That would be fine for you, and we should all envy you." "No, I want a more radical change to outdoor life than that--or at least I want the results. I ’ve made up my mind that to live my life out as a bookish invalid, if I might do better, is ’too poor a way of playing the game of life,’ as one author I like immensely puts it. I shall stick to the books all I can, but--I want some good red blood in my veins besides." Forrest’s words spoken weeks ago, charging Murray with the very lack of "red blood," came to Jane’s mind, and she smiled and sighed, thinking what a change those weeks had made in the relations of the two brothers. And here was Murray wishing for the very thing the want of which his vigorous brother had deplored. "I ’m sure you can have it, and all the good things that go with it." "Which are many, as you people have already taught me. Honestly, it’s seeing your family so alive and hearty and happy that’s brought me to be dissatisfied with myself. I ’m going to have need of all I can put into Murray Townsend, and so--I ’ve about made up my mind----"