"It is glorious," he almost panted. "You see this everyday!" Then, recalling himself, he came eagerly toward me, stretching out his hand.

"You are the schoolmaster, I know. Do you know, it's a great thing? I wanted to be one, but I never could get the boys on. They always got me telling them tales. I was awfully disappointed. I am trying the next best thing. You see, I won't have to keep order, but I don't think I can preach very well. I am going to visit your school. Have you many scholars? Do you know, I think it's splendid? I wish I could do it."

I had intended to be somewhat stiff with him, but his evident admiration of me made me quite forget this laudable intention, and, as he talked on without waiting for an answer, his enthusiasm, his deference to my opinion, his charm of manner, his beautiful face, his luminous eyes, made him perfectly irresistible; and before I was aware I was listening to his plans for working his mission with eager interest. So eager was my interest, indeed, that before I was aware I found myself asking him to tea with me in my shack. But he declined, saying:

"I'd like to, awfully; but do you know, I think Latour expects me."

This consideration of Latour's feelings almost upset me.

"You come with me," he added, and I went.

Latour welcomed us with his grim old face wreathed in unusual smiles.

The pilot had been talking to him, too.

"I've got it, Latour!" he cried out as he entered; "here you are,"

and he broke into the beautiful French-Canadian chanson, "A la Claire Fontaine," to the old half-breed's almost tearful delight.

"Do you know," he went on, "I heard that first down the Mattawa,"

and away he went into a story of an experience with French-Canadian raftsmen, mixing up his French and English in so charming a manner that Latour; who in his younger days long ago had been a shantyman himself, hardly knew whether he was standing on his head or on his heels.

After tea I proposed a ride out to see the sunset from the nearest rising ground. Latour, with unexampled generosity, offered his own cayuse, "Louis."

"I can't ride well," protested The Pilot.

"Ah! dat's good ponee, Louis," urged Latour. "He's quiet lak wan leetle mouse; he's ride lak--what you call?--wan horse-on-de-rock." Under which persuasion the pony was accepted.

That evening I saw the Swan Creek country with new eyes--through the luminous eyes of The Pilot. We rode up the trail by the side of the Swan till we came to the coulee mouth, dark and full of mystery.

"Come on," I said, "we must get to the top for the sunset."

He looked lingeringly into the deep shadows and asked: "Anything live down there?"

"Coyotes and wolves and ghosts."

"Ghosts?" he asked, delightedly. "Do you know, I was sure there were, and I'm quite sure I shall see them."

Then we took the Porcupine trail and climbed for about two miles the gentle slope to the top of the first rising ground. There we stayed and watched the sun take his nightly plunge into the sea of mountains, now dimly visible. Behind us stretched the prairie, sweeping out level to the sky and cut by the winding coulee of the Swan. Great long shadows from the hills were lying upon its yellow face, and far at the distant edge the gray haze was deepening into purple. Before us lay the hills, softly curving like the shoulders of great sleeping monsters, their tops still bright, but the separating valleys full of shadow. And there, far beyond them, up against the sky, was the line of the mountains--blue, purple, and gold, according as the light fell upon them. The sun had taken his plunge, but he had left behind him his robes of saffron and gold. We stood long without a word or movement, filling our hearts with the silence and the beauty, till the gold in the west began to grow dim.

High above all the night was stretching her star-pierced, blue canopy, and drawing slowly up from the east over the prairie and over the sleeping hills the soft folds of a purple haze. The great silence of the dying day had fallen upon the world and held us fast.

"Listen," he said, in a low tone, pointing to the hills. "Can't you hear them breathe?" And, looking at their curving shoulders, I fancied I could see them slowly heaving as if in heavy sleep, and I was quite sure I could hear them breathe. I was under the spell of his voice and his eyes, and nature was all living to me then.

We rode back to the Stopping Place in silence, except for a word of mine now and then which he heeded not; and, with hardly a good night, he left me at the door. I turned away feeling as if I had been in a strange country and among strange people.

How would he do with the Swan Creek folk? Could he make them see the hills breathe? Would they feel as I felt under his voice and eyes? What a curious mixture he was! I was doubtful about his first Sunday, and was surprised to find all my indifference as to his success or failure gone.

It was a pity about the baseball match. I would speak to some of the men about it to-morrow.

Hi might be disappointed in his appearance, but, as I turned into my shack and thought over my last two hours with The Pilot and how he had "got" old Latour and myself, I began to think that Hi might be mistaken in his measure of The Pilot.

CHAPTER V

FIRST BLOOD

One is never so enthusiastic in the early morning, when the emotions are calmest and the nerves at their steadiest. But I was determined to try to have the baseball match postponed. There could be no difficulty. One day was as much of a holiday as another to these easy-going fellows.

But The Duke, when I suggested a change in the day, simply raised his eyebrows an eighth of an inch and said:

"Can't see why the day should be changed." Bruce stormed and swore all sorts of destruction upon himself if he was going to change his style of life for any man. The others followed The Duke's lead.

That Sunday was a day of incongruities. The Old and the New, the East and the West, the reverential Past and iconoclastic Present were jumbling themselves together in bewildering confusion. The baseball match was played with much vigor and profanity. The expression on The Pilot's face, as he stood watching for a while, was a curious mixture of interest, surprise, doubt and pain. He was readjusting himself. He was so made as to be extremely sensitive to his surroundings. He took on color quickly. The utter indifference to the audacious disregard of all he had hitherto considered sacred and essential was disconcerting. They were all so dead sure. How did he know they were wrong? It was his first near view of practical, living skepticism. Skepticism in a book did not disturb him; he could put down words against it. But here it was alive, cheerful, attractive, indeed fascinating; for these men in their western garb and with their western swing had captured his imagination. He was in a fierce struggle, and in a few minutes I saw him disappear into the coulee.

Meantime the match went uproariously on to a finish, with the result that the champions of "Home" had "to stand The Painkiller," their defeat being due chiefly to the work of Hi and Bronco Bill as pitcher and catcher.

The celebration was in full swing; or as Hi put it, "the boys were takin' their pizen good an' calm," when in walked The Pilot. His face was still troubled and his lips were drawn and blue, as if he were in pain. A silence fell on the men as he walked in through the crowd and up to the bar. He stood a moment hesitating, looking round upon the faces flushed and hot that were now turned toward him in curious defiance. He noticed the look, and it pulled him together. He faced about toward old Latour and asked in a high, clear voice:

"Is this the room you said we might have?"

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders and said:

"There is not any more."

The lad paused for an instant, but only for an instant. Then, lifting a pile of hymn books he had near him on the counter, he said in a grave, sweet voice, and with the quiver of a smile about his lips:

"Gentlemen, Mr. Latour has allowed me this room for a religious service.

It will give me great pleasure if you will all join," and immediately he handed a book to Bronco Bill, who, surprised, took it as if he did not know what to do with it. The others followed Bronco's lead till he came to Bruce, who refused, saying roughly:

"No! I don't want it; I've no use for it."

The missionary flushed and drew back as if he had been struck, but immediately, as if unconsciously, The Duke, who was standing near, stretched out his hand and said, with a courteous bow, "I thank you; I should be glad of one."

"Thank you," replied The Pilot, simply, as he handed him a book. The men seated themselves upon the bench that ran round the room, or leaned up against the counter, and most of them took off their hats. Just then in came Muir, and behind him his little wife.

In an instant The Duke was on his feet, and every hat came off.

The missionary stood up at the bar, and announced the hymn, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul." The silence that followed was broken by the sound of a horse galloping. A buckskin bronco shot past the window, and in a few moments there appeared at the door the Old Timer. He was about to stride in when the unusual sight of a row of men sitting solemnly with hymn books in their hands held him fast at the door. He gazed in an amazed, helpless way upon the men, then at the missionary, then back at the men, and stood speechless. Suddenly there was a high, shrill, boyish laugh, and the men turned to see the missionary in a fit of laughter. It certainly was a shock to any lingering ideas of religious propriety they might have about them; but the contrast between his frank, laughing face and the amazed and disgusted face of the shaggy old man in the doorway was too much for them, and one by one they gave way to roars of laughter. The Old Timer, however, kept his face unmoved, strode up to the bar and nodded to old Latour, who served him his drink, which he took at a gulp.

"Here, old man!" called out Bill, "get into the game; here's your deck,"

offering him his book. But the missionary was before him, and, with very beautiful grace, he handed the Old Timer a book and pointed him to a seat.

I shall never forget that service. As a religious affair it was a dead failure, but somehow I think The Pilot, as Hi approvingly said, "got in his funny work," and it was not wholly a defeat. The first hymn was sung chiefly by the missionary and Mrs. Muir, whose voice was very high, with one or two of the men softly whistling an accompaniment. The second hymn was better, and then came the Lesson, the story of the feeding of the five thousand. As the missionary finished the story, Bill, who had been listening with great interest, said:

"I say, pard, I think I'll call you just now."

"I beg your pardon!" said the startled missionary.

"You're givin' us quite a song and dance now, ain't you?"

"I don't understand," was the puzzled reply.