"All right, aunt; I shall." Ross’s voice was a little husky as he turned to his uncle.
Dr. Grant was standing beside the vacated breakfast table absorbed in filling a glass of water. Carefully he brimmed it drop by drop.
Aunt Anne peered through her tears. "Why, Fred," she exclaimed, "what are you up to? Don’t make Ross miss his train."
Calmly the doctor added a few more drops, and then turned to his nephew. His eyes narrowed intently as he motioned toward the glass.
"I want to test your nerves, Ross. Hold it out," he directed.
The boy smiled confidently, raised the glass, carried it from him the length of a long, steady arm, and held it there. Then he returned it to the table without spilling a drop.
The doctor grasped the hand that had held the glass, looking earnestly into the boy’s eyes.
"Ross, the hand that holds the surgeon’s knife successfully must keep as steady as this."
For a long, silent moment uncle and nephew looked into each other’s faces as their hands gripped. Ross made no reply, but in the expression which leaped to his eyes the older man read the resolution which satisfied him, and which seemed a part of this slow, steady nephew of his.
An hour later the boy was being borne westward on the way to Chicago and the "jumping-off place into the wilderness."