The other man who so helped Russell in his younger days was the Rev. Asa Niles, a cousin of his father's who lived on a neighboring farm. He had heard of Russell's various exploits and saw that he was a boy far above the average, that he had talents worth training. Himself a scholar and a Methodist minister, he knew the value of an education, and the worth to the world of a brilliant, forceful character with clear ideas of right, and high ideals of duty. He was a man far ahead of his times, broad-minded, spiritual in its best sense, and with a winning personality, just the man to attract a clear-sighted, keen-witted boy who quickly saw through shams and despised affectations. Russell at that plastic period could have fallen into no better hands. With loving interest in the boy's welfare, Asa Niles inspired him to get the broadest education in order to make the most of himself, yet ever held before him the highest ideals of life and manhood. Out of the stores of his own knowledge he told him what to read, helped, encouraged, talked over his studies with him, and in every way possible not only made them real and vital to him, but at every step aided him to see their worth. His curiosity keenly aroused, his ambitions kindled by his studies, Russell was restless to be off to see this great world he had read and studied about. The mountains suddenly seemed like prison walls holding him in. An uncontrollable longing swept his soul. He determined to escape. Telling no one of his intentions, one morning just before dawn, he raised the window of the little attic in which he and his brother slept, climbed out over the roof of the woodshed, slipped to the ground and made off down the valley to seek his fortune in the world. It was a hasty resolve. In a little bundle slung over his shoulders he had a few clothes and something to eat. How his heart thumped as he went down the familiar path in the woods, crossed the little brook and began the tramp toward Huntington! Every moment he expected to hear his father's footsteps behind him. Charles might have awakened, found him missing and roused the family! When morning came he climbed a little hill, from which he could look back at the house. He gazed long, and his heart nearly failed him. He could see in imagination every homely detail of the living room, his father's chair to the right of the fireplace, his mother's on the left, the clock between the front windows, which his father wound every night. On a nail hung his old rimless hat, Charlie's coat, and the little sister's sunbonnet. His mother would soon be up and getting breakfast. They would all sit down without him--a lump began to rise in his throat and he almost turned back. But something in his nature always prevented him from giving up a thing he had once undertaken. He set his teeth, picked up his bundle and went down the road between the mountains, the woods stretching, dense, silent, on each side, the little brook