server of the church militant.

"Am I right," he now slowly asked, "in believing that you think I am a
sincere man?"

"I don't believe anything about it. I know it."

"I should run away from Trampas," said the bishop.

"That ain't quite fair, seh. We all understand you have got to do the
things you tell other folks to do. And you do them, seh. You never talk
like anything but a man, and you never set yourself above others. You
can saddle your own horses. And I saw yu' walk unarmed into that
White River excitement when those two other parsons was a-foggin' and
a-fannin' for their own safety. Damn scoundrels!"

The bishop instantly rebuked such language about brothers of his cloth,
even though he disapproved both of them and their doctrines. "Every one
may be an instrument of Providence," he concluded.

"Well," said the Virginian, "if that is so, then Providence makes use of
instruments I'd not touch with a ten-foot pole. Now if you was me, seh,
and not a bishop, would you run away from Trampas?"

"That's not quite fair, either!" exclaimed the bishop, with a smile.
"Because you are asking me to take another man's convictions, and yet
remain myself."

"Yes, seh. I am. That's so. That don't get at it. I reckon you and I
can't get at it."

"If the Bible," said the bishop, "which I believe to be God's word, was
anything to you--"

"It is something to me, seh. I have found fine truths in it."

"'Thou shalt not kill,'" quoted the bishop. "That is plain."

The Virginian took his turn at smiling. "Mighty plain to me, seh. Make
it plain to Trampas, and there'll be no killin'. We can't get at it that
way."

Once more the bishop quoted earnestly. "'Vengeance is mine, I will
repay, saith the Lord.'"

"How about instruments of Providence, seh? Why, we can't get at it that
way. If you start usin' the Bible that way, it will mix you up mighty
quick, seh."

"My friend," the bishop urged, and all his good, warm heart was in it,
"my dear fellow--go away for the one night. He'll change his mind."

The Virginian shook his head. "He cannot change his word, seh. Or at
least I must stay around till he does. Why, I have given him the say-so.
He's got the choice. Most men would not have took what I took from him
in the saloon. Why don't you ask him to leave town?"

The good bishop was at a standstill. Of all kicking against the pricks
none is so hard as this kick of a professing Christian against the whole
instinct of human