Craig looked at him with wistful eyes, and shook his head. ‘It won’t do, old chap, you know. I can’t hold you. You’ve got to have a grip of some one better than I am; and then, besides, I hardly like asking you now’; he hesitated—‘well, to be out-and-out, this step must be taken not for my sake, nor for any man’s sake, and I fancy that perhaps you feel like pleasing me just now a little.’
‘That I do, old fellow,’ said Graeme, putting out his hand. ‘I’ll be hanged if I won’t do anything you say.’
‘That’s why I won’t say,’ replied Craig. Then reverently he added, ‘the organisation is not mine. It is my Master’s.’
‘When are you going to begin?’ asked Graeme.
‘We shall have our communion service in two weeks, and that will be our roll-call.’
‘How many will answer?’ I asked doubtfully.
‘I know of three,’ he said quietly.
‘Three! There are two hundred miners and one hundred and fifty lumbermen! Three!’ and Graeme looked at him in amazement. ‘You think it worth while to organise three?’
‘Well,’ replied Craig, smiling for the first time, ‘the organisation won’t be elaborate, but it will be effective, and, besides, loyalty demands obedience.’
We sat long that afternoon talking, shrinking from the breaking up; for we knew that we were about to turn down a chapter in our lives which we should delight to linger over in after days. And in my life there is but one brighter. At last we said good-bye and drove away; and though many farewells have come in between that day and this, none is so vividly present to me as that between us three men. Craig’s manner with me was solemn enough. ‘“He that loveth his life”; good-bye, don’t fool with this,’ was what he said to me. But when he turned to Graeme his whole face lit up. He took him by the shoulders and gave him a little shake, looking into his eyes, and saying over and over in a low, sweet tone—