"You are a boy of your word," he went on after a moment, "that is what pleased me most about you, and now at the very outset of this business of learning and succeeding in life, I want your promise that you will not halt before obstacles, but go to the top!" There was impelling enthusiasm as well as energy in the resonant tones, and Steve's spirit kindled with answering enthusiasm and a glimmering vision of heights which he had not hitherto glimpsed. "I'll git ter the top, Mr. Polk,--ef I don't die on the way," he said with solemn earnestness. It was a most unexpected, peculiarly intense moment for both, and in the silence which followed, the imagination of boy and man scaled lofty peaks, but the mountain of material success which filled Mr. Polk's vision was not the beautiful, mystic height upon which the boy gazed, and neither dreamed of the conflict which this fact was to bring about in future years. "God hath set eternity in the heart of man," and the child of the woods felt the stirring of an eternal purpose, undefined though it was. The glamour of the world had long since intervened for the man. The telephone rang noisily, having no respect for visions, and Mr. Polk rose to answer it while Steve began at once to put on again the new clothes in unconscious ratification of his solemn life-promise to Mr. Polk. It was Mrs. Colton at the phone and she learned with great relief that Steve had been found. She insisted that Mr. Polk and the boy must come over to supper, after which there would be a little impromptu party of Raymond's friends for Steve. The boy looked very sober when this announcement was made to him, but Mr. Polk smiled and said heartily, as he had already done to Mrs. Colton: "Of course we will go!" And they went. There was just a bit of awkwardness when the boys came into the Coltons' that evening and met Steve once more, but Mr. Polk, with an adroit question, started him to telling them about trapping rabbits, chasing foxes and treeing coons while the boys became so interested, including Steve himself, that all unpleasantness was forgotten. Upon leaving, each boy took Steve's hand with real respect and liking, and Raymond expressed the general sentiment when he exclaimed, "You're a brick!" Next day Mr. Polk and Steve started for the mountain school. As they sat together on the train Steve said: "I'll be larnin' to do things jes' like mammy said fer me ter do. I wonder ef she will know." "I think so," said Mr. Polk simply, but with a gentle sympathy in his voice, which, whenever expressed by look or tone, seemed to bring the boy close to the heart of the man. Resting a moment in this embrace, Steve asked a question which had come to him several times. His father and all the mature men he had known had been married,--for bachelors are rare in the mountains,--why had Mr. Polk no wife? "Is ye woman dead, Mr. Polk?" was the question he asked.