The four campers knelt bare-headed by the grave.
"Couldn't one of you boys say a bit of a prayer?" asked Herb in a thick
voice. "I ain't used to spouting."
All former help had been easily given. This was a harder matter, yet not
so difficult as it would have been amid a city congregation.
Garst tried to recall some suitable prayer from a funeral service; so
did Neal. Both failed.
But here upon Katahdin's side, where, in the large forces of storm and
slide, in forest and granite, through every wind-swept bush, waving
blade, and tinted lichen, breathed a whisper from God, it seemed no
unnatural thing for a man or a boy to speak to his Father.
"Can't one of you fellers say a prayer?" asked Herb again.
Then the river of feeling in Cyrus broke the dam of reserve, and flowed
over his lips in a prayer such as he had never before uttered.
It was the prayer of a son who was for the minute absorbed in his
Father.
It left the five, those who were camping here and one who had gone to
unseen camping-grounds, with son-like trust to the Father's dealings.
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