hen of savage lands.

"Not no more, they don't. The last Circuit Rider that come was a young
fellow who looked upon a woman to lust after her," explained the peddler
with Biblical simplicity, "and her man shot him up, and I reckon he was
too skeert to come back again. Hit's mighty nigh a year sence there's
bin a proper baptizin' or buryin' or marryin' on Misty, with young folks
pairin' off and babies comin' along as fast as ever. They git tired of
waitin' to be tied proper, you see. They've done backslid even from whar
they was at."

"I had always understood," murmured the interested Channing, "that
jumping over a broomstick was the accepted form of marriage in these
mountains."

"Well, stranger, a broomstick's better than nothin', I reckon," replied
the peddler tolerantly. "It kinder stands for law and order, anyway.
I've knowed folks down around these parts, whar they's a-plenty of
preachers, to take up with each other 'thout'n so much as a broomstick
to make things bindin'-like."

Philip exchanged glances with the author. "_Touche!_" he murmured. He
turned to Brother Bates. "If I can manage to get away for a week or two,
will you pilot me up to Misty?" he asked. "I might make up a few arrears
of weddings, funerals, and so forth."

"You, Philip? Good!" exclaimed Kate, heartily.

The Apostle for the first time allowed his gaze to rest on Philip. He
chuckled, with the sly malice of a child that has played some trick upon
an elder. "I 'lowed you'd be speakin' up purty soon," he said. "I bin
talkin' at you all the time, son. Hit don't matter what kind of a
preacher you be--Methody or Cam'elite, or what--jest so's you kin give
'em the Word strong."

"I'll give it to them as strong as I can," smiled Philip, "though I must
confess that I share your doubts with regard to hell-fire."

"Can ye start a tune? That's what gits 'em every time."

"I can do better than that." He looked at Jacqueline.

Even as he spoke, inspiration had come to him. It was the answer to the
problem of how to separate Jacqueline from Channing. "Will you come,
too, and be my choir?" he asked her.

She clapped her hands. "What a lark! Mummy, may I? You know how I've
always longed to go up into the mountains!"

Suddenly she paused, dismayed. She had remembered Channing.

But that gentleman rose to the occasion with promptitude, somewhat to
the chagrin of Philip.

"How would you like to add a passable tenor to your choir, Benoix? If
you wi