She reached out a delicate, expressive hand, and laid it gently on his brawny arm. It came to him, at that hour, like a benediction from God. "_What_ do you wish?" she repeated. "I wisht you'd give me a Bible." She lifted the Bible from her desk, one long used by her and carefully marked, and placing it in his open hand, she said: "Never forget, John, that Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, has bought your soul with a great price, and that it belongs to God." He tried to thank her. Then turning, without a vocal word of thanks, he left the room; and with long, easy, rapid strides, sought the solitude of the mountains. The something within him that had long been beating to be free, now asserted itself. It _would_ have way. It seemed to be his real self, and yet a new man, risen up out of his dead and fruitless past. It seemed to sing within him, yet it sorrowed. And in the midst of the sorrow, a great hope was born. He knew it now,--this Something was his own Soul! There, on the heights of the rugged foothills, he stood alone. Only the fathomless deeps of the sky saw the struggle of that human soul. For a while he seemed to be passing through the tortures of the damned. He fought his way inch by inch. Great beads of sweat covered his forehead; then, lifting one clenched hand high in the air, as though he had burst forth from a dungeon of death into the light of day, he said: "God! God!" CHAPTER VII THE GILA CLUB The class of cowboys soon outgrew the living room at Clayton Ranch, and now occupied the schoolhouse three consecutive evenings a week. Although the class had organized as the Gila Club, for study and social life, the meetings thus far had been for the purpose of study only. From the inception of the club, it had met with popular favor. For many a day, nothing had been so much talked of, and talked of with such unqualified approval. The knowledge of the teacher, her unselfish interest in the men, her goodness and kindness, were themes upon which many a rough man grew eloquent. Had Esther Bright been a Sister of Mercy, in the sacred garb of the Church, she could hardly have been revered more than she was. It never occurred to her as she went and came among them, that she needed a protector. Before the year was over, many a one in that group would have risked his life to save hers. And yet, Esther Bright was not such an unusual woman. Such as she may be found almost anywhere in this land, sanctifying the home; rearing children to be true men and women; teaching in the schools; ministering to the sick; protecting the pure; rescuing the fallen; and exemplifying in every act of their lives, Christ's teachings of love and mercy. And the work of this great sisterhood goes quietly, unfalteringly on, making, as no other force does, for the real progress of the race.