第51章

"I hold the opinion that you have mentioned an uncommonly vallable remedy, better'n Pain Killer almost."Bill rose languidly.

"I say," he drawled, tapping the young fellow, "it appears to me a little walk would perhaps be good, mebbe.""All right, wait till I get my cap," was the unsuspecting reply.

"I don't think perhaps you won't need it, mebbe.I cherish the opinion you'll, perhaps, be warm enough." Bill's voice had unconsciously passed into a sterner tone.Hi was on his feet and at the door.

"This here interview is private AND confidential," said Bill to his partner.

"Exactly," said Hi, opening the door.At this the young fellow, who was a strapping six-footer, but soft and flabby, drew back and refused to go.He was too late.Bill's grip was on his collar and out they went into the snow, and behind them Hi closed the door.

In vain the young fellow struggled to wrench himself free from the hands that had him by the shoulder and the back of the neck.Itook it all in from the window.He might have been a boy for all the effect his plungings had upon the long, sinewy arms that gripped him so fiercely.After a minute's furious struggle the young fellow stood quiet, when Bill suddenly shifted his grip from the shoulder to the seat of his buckskin trousers.Then began a series of evolutions before the house--up and down, forward and back, which the unfortunate victim, with hands wildly clutching at empty air, was quite powerless to resist till he was brought up panting and gasping, subdued, to a standstill.

"I'll larn you agnostics and several other kinds of ticks," said Bill, in a terrible voice, his drawl lengthening perceptibly.

"Come round here, will you, and shove your blanked second-handed trash down our throats?" Bill paused to get words; then, bursting out in rising wrath:

"There ain't no sootable words for sich conduct.By the livin'

Jeminy--" He suddenly swung his prisoner off his feet, lifted him bodily, and held him over his head at arm's length."I've a notion to--""Don't! don't! for Heaven's sake!" cried the struggling wretch, "I'll stop it! I will!"Bill at once lowered him and set him on his feet.

"All right! Shake!" he said, holding out his hand, which the other took with caution.

It was a remarkably sudden conversion and lasting in its effects.

There was no more agnosticism in the little group that gathered around The Pilot for the nightly reading.

The interest in the reading kept growing night by night.

"Seems as if The Pilot was gittin' in his work," said Bill to me;and looking at the grave, eager faces, I agreed.He was getting in his work with Bill, too; though perhaps Bill did not know it.Iremember one night, when the others had gone, The Pilot was reading to us the Parable of the Talents, Bill was particularly interested in the servant who failed in his duty.

"Ornery cuss, eh?" he remarked; "and gall, too, eh? Served him blamed well right, in my opinion!"But when the practical bearing of the parable became clear to him, after long silence, he said, slowly:

"Well, that there seems to indicate that it's about time for me to get a rustle on." Then, after another silence, he said, hesitatingly, "This here church-buildin' business now, do you think that'll perhaps count, mebbe? I guess not, eh? 'Tain't much, o'

course, anyway." Poor Bill, he was like a child, and The Pilot handled him with a mother's touch.

"What are you best at, Bill?"

"Bronco-bustin' and cattle," said Bill, wonderingly; "that's my line.""Well, Bill, my line is preaching just now, and piloting, you know." The Pilot's smile was like a sunbeam on a rainy day, for there were tears in his eyes and voice."And we have just got to be faithful.You see what he says: 'Well done, good and FAITHFULservant.Thou hast been FAITHFUL.'"

Bill was puzzled.

"Faithful!" he repeated."Does that mean with the cattle, perhaps?""Yes, that's just it, Bill, and with everything else that comes your way."And Bill never forgot that lesson, for I heard him, with a kind of quiet enthusiasm, giving it to Hi as a great find."Now, I call that a fair deal," he said to his friend; "gives every man a show.

No cards up the sleeve."

"That's so," was Hi's thoughtful reply; "distributes the trumps."Somehow Bill came to be regarded as an authority upon questions of religion and morals.No one ever accused him of "gettin'

religion." He went about his work in his slow, quiet way, but he was always sharing his discoveries with "the boys." And if anyone puzzled him with subtleties he never rested till he had him face to face with The Pilot.And so it came that these two drew to each other with more than brotherly affection.When Bill got into difficulty with problems that have vexed the souls of men far wiser than he, The Pilot would either disentangle the knots or would turn his mind to the verities that stood out sure and clear, and Bill would be content.

"That's good enough for me," he would say, and his heart would be at rest.