ed to turn me school boy at forty, an' to dig in y'r
graveyard o' theology; that was before m' brother was bishop and why, A
hiked for Indians, Wayland! A know the Cree tongue, an' A know the
need o' decency in th' tepees, an' A know the trick o' puttin'
Christianity into th' end o' m' fist on white blackguards! An' that's
all."

"Is that all?" repeated Wayland; and he gave the old frontiersman the
same kind of a look, Matthews had given him that day going up the face
of the Pass precipice.

"Yes, that's all there was to it; an' A could no more tell y' what
happened, Wayland, than y' could tell a man what happened when y'
jumped in that pool an' got washed clean! Better try it, Wayland!"

They sat late listening to the gurgle and trill and tinkle of the water
slipping over the stones. Neither man said anything more, nor mouthed,
nor kneeled, nor amened, nor did save as men among men do and say: but
somehow Wayland had never felt so sure of the God, who was Love and
whose Love washed men clean, being, as he told himself, 'on the job.'
It may not have been religion; and it may not have been theology; but I
think it was the workable conviction that many a fighting man
incorporates into his life. Perhaps, it was what Christians call
Belief, only we have so slimed that good word over with hypocrisy that
it's hard for fighting working men among men, women among women, people
on the job, to mine down to the exact business sense of those old
religious terms. 'Slimed with hypocrisy?' Yes, good friends, 'slimed
with hypocrisy.' Have you not known men and women, legions of them,
who shouted their fire-proof Belief, Belief, Belief, their
fire-insurance Belief that was to roof them from rain of fire and act
as an umbrella against the results of their own misdeeds; who
underscored their Bibles, and prayed long and loud, and proclaimed
themselves right, when every day, every act of every day, every
leastermost act of very hour, shouted blasphemous denial of what so
ever is lovely and pure and unselfish and Christlike; whose influence
damned and injured and blighted every life it touched? You must not
blame business men and women for wanting a workable faith, a faith that
will deliver the goods on the job.

CHAPTER XXI

THE HAPPY AND TRIUMPHANT HOME-COMING

They were up before sunrise following along a rock trail against the
face of a mountain through the morning mists, when they turned a sharp
crag and came sudd