Like a great surging wave, the thought of an ignominious return to Brimfield, and a picture of the mill and the store as he had last seen them, swept over the boy's mind. Then came the more recent picture of the happy out-of-door life he had been leading for the past three days. How could he give up the one and go back to the other? Of course, if Mr. Hobart said he could no longer have work with the surveying-party, it must be so. There could be no appeal from that decision. And he had tried so hard to do well whatever had been given him to do, and to make himself useful! It was too bad! But surely there must be other work in this big, bustling, wide-awake West, even for a boy. With this thought his clouded face cleared, and a look of settled resolve overspread it.