“I know it but there’s only one Bim Kelso in the world,” Harry answered mournfully.  “She was the one I loved.”

“Yes, but you’ll find another.  It looks serious but it isn’t—­you’re so young.  Hold up your head and keep going.  You’ll be happy again soon.”

“Maybe, but I don’t see how,” said the boy.

“There are lots of things you can’t see from where you are at this present moment.  There are a good many miles ahead o’ you I reckon and one thing you’ll see plainly, by and by, that it’s all for the best.  I’ve suffered a lot myself but I can see now it has been a help to me.  There isn’t an hour of it I’d be willing to give up.”

They paddled along in silence for a time.

“It was my fault,” said Harry presently.  “I never could say the half I wanted to when she was with me.  My tongue is too slow.  She gave me a chance and I wasn’t man enough to take it.  That’s all I’ve got to say on that subject.”

He seemed to find it hard to keep his word for in a moment he added: 

“I wouldn’t have been so good a scout if it hadn’t been for her.  I guess the Injuns would have got me but when I thought of her I just kept going.”

“I think you did it just because you were a brave man and had a duty to perform,” said Abe.

Some time afterward in a letter to his father the boy wrote: 

* * * * *

“I often think of that ride down the river and the way he talked to me.  It was so gentle.  He was a big, powerful giant of a man who weighed over two hundred pounds, all of it bone and muscle.  But under his great strength was a woman’s gentleness; under the dirty, ragged clothes and the rough, brown skin grimy with dust and perspiration, was one of the cleanest souls that ever came to this world.  I don’t mean that he was like a minister.  He could tell a story with pretty rough talk in it but always for a purpose.  He hated dirt on the hands or on the tongue.  If another man had a trouble Abe took hold of it with him.  He would put a lame man’s pack on top of his own and carry it.  He loved flowers like a woman.  He loved to look at the stars at night and the colors of the sunset and the morning dew on the meadows.  I never saw a man so much in love with fun and beauty.”

* * * * *

They reached Havana that evening and sold their canoe to a man who kept boats to rent on the river shore.  They ate a hot supper at the tavern and got a ride with a farmer who was going ten miles in their direction.  From his cabin some two hours later they set out afoot in the darkness.

“I reckon it will be easier under the stars than under the hot sun,” said Abe.  “Our legs have had a long rest anyhow.”

They enjoyed the coolness and beauty of the summer night.