ehind him and his holiday, he
stretched his legs and took heart to see out of the window the signs
of approaching desolation. And when on the fourth day civilization
was utterly emptied out of the world, he saw a bunch of cattle, and,
galloping among them, his spurred and booted kindred. And his manner
took on that alertness a horse shows on turning into the home road. As
the stage took him toward Washakie, old friends turned up every fifty
miles or so, shambling out of a cabin or a stable, and saying, in casual
tones, "Hello, Lin, where've you been at?"

At Lander, there got into the stage another old acquaintance, the Bishop
of Wyoming. He knew Lin at once, and held out his hand, and his greeting
was hearty.

"It took a week for my robes to catch up with me," he said, laughing.
Then, in a little while, "How was the East?"

"First-rate," said Lin, not looking at him. He was shy of the
conversation's taking a moral turn. But the bishop had no intention of
reverting--at any rate, just now--to their last talk at Green River, and
the advice he had then given.

"I trust your friends were all well?" he said.

"I guess they was healthy enough," said Lin.

"I suppose you found Boston much changed? It's a beautiful city."

"Good enough town for them that likes it, I expect," Lin replied.

The bishop was forming a notion of what the matter must be, but he had
no notion whatever of what now revealed itself.

"Mr. Bishop," the cow-puncher said, "how was that about that fellow you
told about that's in the Bible somewheres?--he come home to his folks,
and they--well there was his father saw him comin'"--He stopped,
embarrassed.

Then the bishop remembered the wide-open eyes, and how he had noticed
them in the church at the agency intently watching him. And, just
now, what were best to say he did not know. He looked at the young man
gravely.

"Have yu' got a Bible?" pursued Lin. "For, excuse me, but I'd like yu'
to read that onced."

So the bishop read, and Lin listened. And all the while this good
clergyman was perplexed how to speak--or if indeed to speak at this time
at all--to the heart of the man beside him for whom the parable had gone
so sorely wrong. When the reading was done, Lin had not taken his eyes
from the bishop's face.

"How long has that there been wrote?" he asked.

He was told about how long.

"Mr. Bishop," said Lin, "I ain't got good knowledge of the Bible, and I
never figured it to be a book m