taking the harness off his horse.

"Here is a chance for you, my boy," he said, putting his hand
affectionately on Sam's shoulder. There was a note of tenderness in his
voice. He had written to the Chicago firm to whom he sold most of the
things he bought, telling of Sam and his ability, and the firm had replied
making an offer that Sam thought far beyond anything he might hope for in
Caxton. In his hand he held this offer.

When Sam read the letter his heart jumped. He thought that it opened for
him a wide new field of effort and of money making. He thought that at
last he had come to the end of his boyhood and was to have his chance in
the city. Only that morning old Doctor Harkness had stopped him at the
door as he set out for work and, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb
to where in the house his mother lay, wasted and asleep, had told him that
in another week she would be gone, and Sam, heavy of heart and filled with
uneasy longing, had walked through the streets to Freedom's stable wishing
that he also might be gone.

Now he walked across the stable floor and hung the harness he had taken
from the horse upon a peg in the wall.

"I will be glad to go," he said heavily.

Freedom walked out of the stable door beside the young McPherson who had
come to him as a boy and was now a broad-shouldered young man of eighteen.
He did not want to lose Sam. He had written the Chicago company because of
his affection for the boy and because he believed him capable of something
more than Caxton offered. Now he walked in silence holding the lantern
aloft and guiding the way among the wreckage in the yard, filled with