ions about the Apostolic Succession and
mistaken views upon Church government. The Colonel, at all events, was
not so lax but what he was ready to back up the Calvinist in an
endeavour to keep the Sabbath (with a careful compromise between church
and chapel) and help him to conduct a Saturday-night Bible-class.
But if the Boy attended the Bible-class with fervour and aired his
heresies with uncommon gusto, if he took with equal geniality Colonel
Warren's staid remonstrance and Mac's fiery objurgation, Sunday morning
invariably found him more "agnostic" than ever, stoutly declining to
recognise the necessity for "service." For this was an occasion when
you couldn't argue or floor anybody, or hope to make Mac "hoppin' mad,"
or have the smallest kind of a shindy. The Colonel read the lessons,
Mac prayed, and they all sang, particularly O'Flynn. Now, the Boy
couldn't sing a note, so there was no fair division of entertainment,
wherefore he would go off into the woods with his gun for company, and
the Catholic O'Flynn, and even Potts, were in better odour than he
"down in camp" on Sundays. So far you may travel, and yet not escape
the tyranny of the "outworn creeds."
The Boy came back a full hour before service on the second Sunday with
a couple of grouse and a beaming countenance. Mac, who was cook that
week, was the only man left in the tent. He looked agreeably surprised
at the apparition.
"Hello!" says he more pleasantly than his Sunday gloom usually
permitted. "Back in time for service?"
"I've found a native," says the Boy, speaking as proudly as any
Columbus. "He's hurt his foot, and he's only got one eye, but he's
splendid. Told me no end of things. He's coming here as fast as his
foot will let him--he and three other Indians--Esquimaux, I mean. They
haven't had anything to eat but berries and roots for seven days."
The Boy was feverishly overhauling the provisions behind the stove.
"Look here," says Mac, "hold on there. I don't know that we've come all
this way to feed a lot o' dirty savages."
"But they're starving." Then, seeing that that fact did not produce the
desired impression: "My savage is an awfully good fellow. He--he's a
converted savage, seems to be quite a Christian." Then, hastily
following up his advantage: "He's been taught English by the Jesuits at
the mission forty miles above us, on the river. He can give us a whole
heap o' tips."
Mac was slowly bringing out a small panful of cold
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