They were now well out of the city, speeding along a country road. Thirty miles from the heart of the city they swung through a gateway and came to a stop before a small, low-roofed cottage. It was now dark. The place seemed cold and deserted. "You'll not find any ceilings falling on you here," Captain Burns chuckled. "This was my boyhood home." "Your boyhood home!" Johnny surveyed the narrow yard surrounded by ancient maples. He looked at the insignificant dwelling towered over by a giant cottonwood tree. "And you rose from this," he said in an awed whisper. "No, Johnny," the Captain replied quickly. "I didn't rise. No one ever rises above his boyhood home. It is the grandest place on earth. Come on in." The place they entered was the kitchen. It had a low ceiling. In a corner stood a small wood-burning kitchen range with a top that was warped and cracked. "That's the very stove," the Captain said proudly, touching a match to shavings and watching yellow flames spread. "I cut wood for it more than thirty years ago. "I was away from this place a long, long time, Johnny. When I got some money I bought it for a sort of retreat. When I am poor again it shall be the last of my treasured possessions to go--my boyhood home!" he ended reverently. "When I think--" There was a rumble in the Captain's throat as he began to speak after some moments of silence. "When I think of the good, simple, happy times we had here, I wonder--" He did not finish, but sat smiling and looking at the glowing hearth of the little, old, cracked kitchen stove. "I was raised in this one small room," he began once more. "Oh, yes, we slept upstairs. No fire up there, not a spark. Cold!" He chuckled. "Twenty below sometimes. "But this room, it was home to us. Home." He said it softly. "I can see it now. The table there and the yellow glow of a kerosene lamp. Father dozing by the fire. Brother Tom reading. He was a scholar, Tom was. Made a fine man, he would, if--" Once more he did not finish. "Father was a pious man," he rumbled on after a time. "Wonder how many sons of truly pious men make their mark in the world? Many of them, I believe. "We always had prayers on our knees before we went upstairs. Father's prayer was always much the same. One sentence I remember well: 'We thank Thee, our Father, that it is well with us as it is.' It wasn't very well with us all the time. But we had peace. The doors were never locked. Precious little to steal, and no one to steal it. "Peace!" he mused. "Sometimes I wonder whether this eternal struggle is worth the cost. When I got older and went out with my father to help with the work, when we came rattling home in the dark in our old lumber wagon, we had peace. No one wanted to kill us. But now--" Once again he did not finish. There was no need. Full well Johnny knew that there were those who wished this faithful officer beneath the sod.