re the Lord before giving their answer. And
I am beginning to think that the Lord has some grudge against the West,
for almost invariably He appears to advise these men to leave it
severely alone.' Oh, it was great!" Little Brown hugged his knee in
delight at the memory of that rasping tongue.

"But surely there are plenty of men," said Mrs. Macgregor a little
impatiently, "for there's no want of them whateffer when a congregation
falls vacant."

"That's so," replied Brown; "but you see he wants only first-class
men--men ready for anything in the way of hardship, and not to be
daunted by man or devil."

"Ou ay!" said the old lady, nodding her head grimly; "he will not be
finding so many of yon kind."

"But it must be a great country," went on Brown. "You ought to bear him
tell of the rivers with sands of gold, running through beds of coal
sixty feet thick."

The old lady shook her cap at him, peering over her glasses. "Ye're a
gay callant, and you will be taking your fun off me."

"But it's true. Ask Shock there."

"What?" said Shock, waking up from a deep study. Brown explained.

"Yes," said Shock. "The sands of the Saskatchewan are full of gold, and
you know, mother, about the rivers in Cariboo."

"Ay, I remember fine the Cariboo, and Cariboo Cameron and his gold. But
not much good did it do him, poor fellow."

"But," said Shock, gazing into the fire, "it was terrible to hear his
tales of these men in the mines with their saloons and awful gambling
places, and the men and women in their lonely shacks in the foot-hills.
My! I could see them all."

Mrs. Macgregor looked sharply into her son's face, then laying her
knitting down in her lap she turned to him and said severely, "And what
took them out yonder? And did they not know what-na country it was
before they went out?"

"Yes," said Shock, still looking into the fire, "but there they are,
Mother, there they are, and no living soul to speak a good word to
them."

"Well then," said the old lady, even more impatiently, "let them put up
with it, as better before them have done to their credit, ay, and to
their good as well."

"Meantime the saloons and worse are getting them," replied Shock, "and
fine fellows they are, too, he says."

"And is yon man wanting the lads from the college to go out yonder to
those terrible-like mines and things so far from their homes? Why does
he not send the men who are wanting places?" Mrs. Macgregor's tone was
unusuall