abruptly, after a momentary silence, "how it
happens that the men who have been here before me left no trace of
any--any--well, anything? There have been other missionaries. They had
funds. They were stationed here. What did they do? I have been going to
ask your father. I daresay you can tell me yourself."

The girl laughed, whether at the question or at his earnestness he could
not say.

"They did nothing," she answered in an amused tone. "What could they do?
You haven't begun to realize yet what a difficult job you've tackled.
The others came here, stayed awhile, threw up their hands and went away.
Their idea of doing good seemed to consist of having a ready-made church
and a ready-made congregation, and to preach nice little, ready-made
religiosities on a Sunday. You can't preach anything to a people who
don't understand a word you say, and who are mostly too busy with more
pressing affairs to listen if they did understand. And you see for
yourself there's no church."

"But what did these fellows do?" he persisted. That had been puzzling
him.

"Nothing," she said scornfully "nothing but sit around and complain
about the loneliness and the coarse food and the discouraging outlook.
Then they'd finally go away--go back to where they came from, I
suppose."

"The last man," Thompson ventured doubtfully. "The factor at Pachugan
told me Mr. Carr assaulted him. That seems rather odd to me, after what
I've seen of your father. Was it so?"

"The last missionary wasn't what you'd call a good man, in any sense,"
Sophie answered frankly. "He was here most of one summer, and toward the
last he showed himself up pretty badly. He developed a nasty trick of
annoying little native girls. Dad thrashed him properly. Dad took it as
a sort of reflection on us. Even the Indians don't approve of that sort
of thing. He left in a hurry, after that."

Thompson felt his face burn.

"Things like that made a bad impression," he returned diffidently. "I
suppose in all walks of life there are wolves in sheep's clothing. I
hope it hasn't prejudiced you against churchmen in general."

"One single incident?" she smiled. "That wouldn't be very logical, would
it? No. We're not so intolerant. I don't suppose dad would actually have
gone the length of thrashing him, if the preacher hadn't taken a high
and mighty tone as a sort of bluff. That particular preacher happened to
be a local nuisance. I suppose in a settled, well-organized community,