fastened one end of the rope about his wrist, and then taking the stone which was fastened to the other end, he tried to throw it up over the nest. It was an awkward and dangerous position, and the stone did not reach the top. Six or seven times he threw that stone up, and it fell short or went to one side, and nearly dragged him down as it fell.

"The boy felt for his knife again, opened it with his teeth as he held on, and hauling the rope up, cut off a part of it. He threw a short piece around the trunk and tied himself with it to the tree. Then he could lean back for a longer throw. He tied the rope to his hand again, and threw the stone with all his energy. It went straight as an arrow, drew the rope squarely over the nest and fell down the other side of the tree. After a struggle he reached around for the stone, and tied that end of the rope to a long broken limb. When he drew the other end of the rope which had been fastened to his hand, it broke down the sides of the nest, and an old bird arose with a wild scream.

"Then he loosed the rope which held him to the tree, and pulling himself up with his hands on the scaling line, digging his bare toes, heels and knees at times into the ragged bark, he was up in two minutes to the nest."

"That is a child's ambition," said one of the men, as they both drew a breath of relief, when he stepped safely to the ground. "Wait until he has a man's ambition. If that vein of perseverance doesn't run out, he will do something worth while."

CHAPTER IV

TWO MEN AND THEIR INFLUENCE

John Brown. Fireside Discussions. Runaway Slaves. Fred Douglas. Rev.
Asa Niles. A Runaway Trip to Boston.

Two men entered into Russell Conwell's life in these formative days of boyhood who unconsciously had much to do with the course of his after life.

One was John Brown, that man "who would rush through fire though it burn, through water though it drown, to do the work which his soul knew that it must do." During his residence in Springfield, this man "possessed like Socrates with a genius that was too much for him" was a frequent visitor at the Conwell home. Russell learned to know that face with "features chiselled, as it were, in granite," the large clear eyes that seemed fairly to change color with the intensity of his feelings when he spoke on the one subject that was the very heart of the man. Tall, straight, lithe, with hair brushed back from a high forehead, thick, full beard and a wonderful, penetrating voice whose tones once heard were never forgotten, his arrival was always received with shouts by the Conwell boys. Had he not lived in the West and fought real Indians! What surer "open sesame" is there to a boy's heart? He was not so enrapt in his one great project, but that he could go out to the barn and pitch down hay from the mow with Russell, or tell him wonderful stories of the great West where he had lived as a boy, and of the wilderness through which he had tramped as a mere child when he cared for his father's cattle. Russell was entirely too young to grasp the meaning of the earnest discussions that went on about the fireplace of which this Spartan was then the centre. But in later years their meaning came to him with a peculiar significance. A light seemed to be shed on the horrors of slavery as if the voice of his childhood's friend were calling from the grave in impassioned tones, to aid the cause for which he had given his life.

Martin Conwell, progressive, aggressive, was not a man to let his deeds lag behind his words. Such help as he could, he lent the cause of the oppressed. He made his home one of the stations of the "Underground Railway," as the road to freedom for escaping slaves was called. Many a time in the dead of night, awakened by the noise of a wagon, Russell would steal to the little attic window, to see in the light of the lantern, a trembling black man, looking fearfully this way and that for pursuers, being hurried into the barn. Back to bed went Russell, where his imagination pictured all manner of horrible cruelties the slaves were suffering until the childish heart was near to bursting with sympathy for them and with fiery indignation at the injustice that brought them to this pitiful state. Not often did he see them, but sometimes childish curiosity was too strong and he searched out the cowering fugitive in the barn, and if the runaway happened to be communicative, he heard exaggerated tales of cruelty that set even his young blood to tingling with a mighty desire to right their wrongs. Then the next night, the wagon wheels were heard again and the slave was hurried away to the house of a cousin of William Cullen Bryant, at Cummington. As the wheels died in the distance up the mountain road, the boyish imagination pictured the flight, on, on, into the far north till the Canada border was reached and the slave free. Little wonder that when the war broke out, this boy, older grown, spoke as with a tongue of fire and swept men up by the hundreds with his impassioned eloquence, to sign the muster roll.

One of these slaves thus helped to freedom is now Rev. J.G. Ramage, of Atlanta, Ga. In 1905, he applied to Temple College for the degree of LL.D. Noticing on the letter sent in reply to his request, the name of Russell Conwell, President of the College, he wrote Dr. Conwell, telling him that in 1856 when a runaway slave he had stopped at a farmhouse at South Worthington, Mass., and remembered the name of Conwell. Undoubtedly Martin Conwell was one of the men who had helped him to freedom.

John Brown brought Fred Douglas, the colored orator, with him on one of his visits. When Russell was told by his father that this was "a celebrated colored speaker and statesman," the boyish eyes opened wide with amazement, and not able to control himself, he burst out in a fit of laughter, saying, "Why, he's not black," much to the amusement of Douglas, who afterwards told him of his life as a slave.

The other man who so helped Russell in his younger days was the Rev. Asa Niles, a cousin of his father's who lived on a neighboring farm. He had heard of Russell's various exploits and saw that he was a boy far above the average, that he had talents worth training. Himself a scholar and a Methodist minister, he knew the value of an education, and the worth to the world of a brilliant, forceful character with clear ideas of right, and high ideals of duty. He was a man far ahead of his times, broad-minded, spiritual in its best sense, and with a winning personality, just the man to attract a clear-sighted, keen-witted boy who quickly saw through shams and despised affectations. Russell at that plastic period could have fallen into no better hands. With loving interest in the boy's welfare, Asa Niles inspired him to get the broadest education in order to make the most of himself, yet ever held before him the highest ideals of life and manhood. Out of the stores of his own knowledge he told him what to read, helped, encouraged, talked over his studies with him, and in every way possible not only made them real and vital to him, but at every step aided him to see their worth.

His curiosity keenly aroused, his ambitions kindled by his studies, Russell was restless to be off to see this great world he had read and studied about. The mountains suddenly seemed like prison walls holding him in. An uncontrollable longing swept his soul. He determined to escape. Telling no one of his intentions, one morning just before dawn, he raised the window of the little attic in which he and his brother slept, climbed out over the roof of the woodshed, slipped to the ground and made off down the valley to seek his fortune in the world. It was a hasty resolve. In a little bundle slung over his shoulders he had a few clothes and something to eat. How his heart thumped as he went down the familiar