.

"Meet Mr. Tommy Ashe, Mr. Thompson," he said. "Mr. Ashe is, like
yourself, a newcomer to Lone Moose. You may be able to exchange mutual
curses on the country. People usually do at first."

"I've been hereabouts six months," Ashe smiled as he rose to shake
hands. (Carr's friendliness seemed a trifle negative, reserved; he had
not offered his hand.)

"That means newly come, as time is reckoned here," Carr remarked. "It
takes at least a generation to make one permanent. Have a seat, Mr.
Thompson. What do you think, so far, of the country you have selected
for the scene of your operations?"

The slightly ironic inflection was not lost upon Thompson. It nettled
him a little, but it was too intangible to be resented, and in any case
he had no ready defence against that sort of thing. He took a third
chair between the two of them and occupied himself a moment
exterminating a few mosquitoes which had followed him from the grassy
floor of the meadow and now slyly sought to find painful lodgment upon
his face and neck.

"To tell the truth," he said at last, "everything is so different from
my expectations that I find myself a bit uncertain. One
finds--well--certain drawbacks."

"Material or spiritual?" Carr inquired gravely.

The Reverend Thompson considered.

"Both," he answered briefly.

This was the most candid admission he had ever permitted himself. Carr
laughed quietly.

"Well," said he, "we are a primitive folk in a primitive region. But I
daresay you hope to accomplish a vast change for the better in us, if
not in the country?"

Again there was that suggestion of mockery, veiled, scarcely
perceptible, a matter of inflection. Mr. Thompson found himself uttering
an entirely unpremeditated reply.

"Which I daresay you doubt, Mr. Carr. You seem to be fully aware of my
mission here, and rather dubious as to its merit."

Carr smiled.

"News travels fast in a country where even a passing stranger is a
notable event," he remarked. "Naturally one draws certain conclusions
when one hears that a minister has arrived in one's vicinity. As to my
doubts--first and last I've seen three different men sent here by your
Board of Home Missions. They have made no more of an impression than a
pebble chucked into the lake. Your Board of Missions must be a visionary
lot. They should come here in a body. This country would destroy some of
their cherished illusions."

"A desire to serve is not an illusion," Thompson said d