He remembered how his widowed mother had toiled and struggled to bring up her six boys aright and give them the best equipment possible for the battle of life. He recalled his own setting out from home--from the home to which he had never returned, and to which he had rarely written. The "Western fever" had gripped him in his early twenties, and nothing could induce him to stay on the Homestead. And so ere long the property had to pass into other hands, because there were no boys left to work the place. The mother's sorrow over the parting with her "Willie" had rested very lightly on him the morning he started Westward. Yet to-day he viewed it in a different light, and he lived the parting over again with very different feelings. The last breakfast had been prepared in silence by the one who had never ceased to love him. More than once she had tried to speak, but the lump in the throat prevented. At last they stood in the hall, and her words were uttered with sobs as she clung to her "baby boy." "Good-bye, my Willie, and remember, that as long as your mother has breath she will pray every day for her boy, and ask God to take care of him." He had assured her he could take care of himself. He remembered the last flutter of the handkerchief as she stood on the milk-stand watching the buggy disappear from the sideroad on to the "gravel." He had "taken care of himself," and a mighty poor job he had made of it, and there seemed little chance of any improvement. While he was in the midst of such thoughts, George Clarke entered. Bill was still holding the photograph. With moistened eyes he looked into the face of his hospitable friend. "George Clarke," he commenced, "it takes a man a long time to own up that he has made a botch of things; it's too late now to make a fresh start, but I've been looking at this picture, and God knows I'd like to have as good a character as I had when that was taken. That woman is as good a mother as any boys ever had, and I haven't shown her the gratitude of a dog." To this day, George Clarke feels that he never made a poorer attempt at trying to speak a helpful word to a discouraged man than on the morning when Bill Bird stood in his little parlour on the old ranch. One result of the conversation, however, was the decision on Bill's part to accept the invitation to remain at the Clarke ranch for at least a few weeks, and during those weeks he saw demonstrated the best type of Christian living with which he had ever come in contact. On several occasions he accompanied George to the hall in which the special services were being held. Rather to the surprise of the Clarkes, he made no response to the appeals from the missioner, which seemed to them so powerful. One Sabbath evening, however, as they sat around the stove, Bill expressed himself in such a way as to bring a thrill of joy to the hearts of those who were greatly concerned in seeing him make the "Choice of the Highest."