He had told Master that Annette was waiting for him at the Falls. The young man sent Harris to bring her with horse and buckboard. Strong lay like one dead while they gave him spirits and bathed his face and hands in oil. Soon he revived a little. "It's Business," he muttered. In a moment his thoughts began to wander in a curious delirium filled with suggestions of the old cheerfulness. He sang, feebly: "The briers are above my head, the brakes above my knee, An' the bark is gettin' kind o' blue upon the ven'son- tree." Rain had begun falling and daylight was on the window-panes. The dethroned Emperor continued to sing fragments of old songs so familiar to all who knew him. "It was in the summer-time when I sailed, when I sailed," he sang. Socky stood by the bed of his uncle with a sad face. "Th-thumbs down," Strong demanded, faintly. Master went out on the little veranda and looked down the road. He could hear the voice of his friend singing: "The green groves are gone from the hills, Maggie." "It is true," thought the young man as he looked off at the smouldering woods. "They are gone and so are the green hearts." Annette came presently and Strong rose on his elbow and looked at her. "Ann," he called, as she knelt by his bedside. "To-day--to-day! It's n-no' some day any m-more. It's to-day." He sank back on his pillow when he saw her tears, and whispered, almost doubtfully, "Better t-times!" He leaned forward and put up his hands as if to relieve the pressure of his pack-straps, and in a moment he had gone out of hearing on a trail that leads to the "better times" he had hoped for, let us try to believe. So ends the history of Silas Strong, guide, contriver, lover of the woods and streams, of honor and good-fellowship. He was never to bow his head before the dreaded tyrant of this world. We may be glad of that, and remember gratefully and with renewed thought of our own standing that Strong was ahead. A curious procession made its way out of the woods that morning. Socky and Sue walked ahead. Master and Edith and her father followed. Then came the boat-jumper with Sinth and all that remained of Silas Strong in it; then the buckboard that carried Harris and old Mrs. Dunmore and the servants. Slowly they made their way towards the sown land. "What ye cryin' fer?" a stranger asked the children as he passed them. "Our Uncle Silas died," was the all-sufficient reply of Socky. Soon they could hear the roar of the saws. "Look!" said Dunmore to his daughter, as they came in sight of the mill chimney. "There's the edge of the great world." He looked thoughtfully at the children a moment and added: "It all reminds me of the words of a mighty teacher, 'A little child shall lead them.'"