“The sun sets at night and the stars shun the day,
     But glory remains when the light fades away;
     Begin, ye tormentors, your threats are in vain,
     For the son of Alknoomook will never complain.”

The tune or melody was admirably adapted to the violin.  Benjamin loved to hear it sung, and Gretchen was pleased to sing and to play it.

Mr. Mann asked Gretchen to play for Mrs. Spaulding, and she chose this simple but expressive melody.  He then asked the school to sing, and he selected the words of

    “Yes, my native land, I love thee,”

to the music of Rousseau’s Dream.  Mrs. Spaulding could hardly keep from joining in the tune and hymn, then well known to all the missionary pioneers.  At the words—­

    “In the desert let me labor,
     On the mountain let me tell,”

her beautiful voice rose above the school, and Gretchen’s fingers trembled as she played the air.

As the lady rode away, Gretchen felt tears coming into her eyes.  The school was dismissed, and the pupils went away, but Gretchen lingered behind.  She told Benjamin to go to the lodge, and that she would follow him after she had had a talk with the master.

“That song is beautiful,” said Gretchen. “‘In the desert let me labor.’  That is what I would like to do all my life.  Do you suppose that I could become a teacher among the Indians like Mrs. Spaulding?  It would make me perfectly happy if I could.  If I were to study hard, would you help me to find such a place in life?”

Gretchen’s large eyes, filled with tears, were bent earnestly on the face of Mr. Mann.

“Yes,” he said, “and if I can inspire you only to follow me in such work, it will repay me for an unknown grave in the forests of the Columbia.”

Gretchen started; she trembled she knew not why, then buried her face in her arms on the rude log desk and sobbed.

She raised her head at last, and went out, singing—­

    “In the desert let me labor.”

It was a glorious sundown in autumn.  The burning disk of the sun hung in clouds of pearl like an oriel-window in a magnificent temple.  Black shadows fell on the placid waters of the Columbia, and in the limpid air under the bluffs Indians fished for salmon, and ducks and grebes sported in river weeds.

Marlowe Mann went away from the log school-house that night a happy man.  He had seen that his plans in life were already budding.  He cared little for himself, but only for the cause to which he devoted his life—­to begin Christian education in the great empire of Oregon.

But how unexpected this episode was, and how far from his early dreams!  His spirit had inspired first of all this orphan girl from the Rhine, who had been led here by a series of strange events.  This girl had learned faith from her father’s prayers.  On the Rhine she had never so much as heard of the Columbia—­the new Rhine of the sundown seas.