"How do you support yourself?" asked Mantel, to whom such a man was a phenomenon.
"We do not any of us support ourselves so much as we are supported," he replied.
"And this life of toil and self-denial had its origin in those words I spoke in the empty lumber camp?" asked David, incredulously.
"It is not a life of self-denial, but that was its beginning."
"It is a mystery. I lost my faith and you found it, and now perhaps you are going to give it back again!" David said.
The lumberman turned his searching eyes kindly on Mantel's face and said, "And how is it with thee, my friend; hast thou the peace of God?"
The directness of the question startled the gambler. "I have, no peace of any kind; my heart is full of storms and my life is a ruin," he answered sadly.
"Did thee never notice," said the lumberman gently, "how nature loves to reclaim a ruin?"
"In what way?"
"By covering it with vines and moss."