Above it hung the highly ornate and altogether extraordinary
sounding-board and canopy. There was no sign of paint anywhere, but
the yellow pine, of which seats, gallery, and pulpit were all made, had
deepened with age into a rich brown, not unpleasant to the eye.

The church was full, for the Indian Lands people believed in going
to church, and there was not a house for many miles around but was
represented in the church that day. There they sat, row upon row of men,
brawny and brown with wind and sun, a notable company, worthy of their
ancestry and worthy of their heritage. Beside them sat their wives,
brown, too, and weather-beaten, but strong, deep-bosomed, and with faces
of calm content, worthy to be mothers of their husbands' sons. The girls
and younger children sat with their parents, modest, shy, and reverent,
but the young men, for the most part, filled the back seats under
the gallery. And a hardy lot they were, as brown and brawny as their
fathers, but tingling with life to their finger-tips, ready for
anything, and impossible of control except by one whom they feared as
well as reverenced. And such a man was Alexander Murray, for they knew
well that, lithe and brawny as they were, there was not a man of them
but he could fling out of the door and over the fence if he so wished;
and they knew, too, that he would be prompt to do it if occasion arose.
Hence they waited for the word of God with all due reverence and fear.

In the square pew in front of the pulpit sat the elders, hoary, massive,
and venerable. The Indian Lands Session were worth seeing. Great men
they were, every one of them, excepting, perhaps, Kenneth Campbell,
"Kenny Crubach," as he was called, from his halting step. Kenny was
neither hoary nor massive nor venerable. He was a short, grizzled man
with snapping black eyes and a tongue for clever, biting speech;
and while he bore a stainless character, no one thought of him as
an eminently godly man. In public prayer he never attained any great
length, nor did he employ that tone of unction deemed suitable in this
sacred exercise. He seldom "spoke to the question," but when he did
people leaned forward to listen, and more especially the rows of the
careless and ungodly under the gallery. Kenny had not the look of an
elder, and indeed, many wondered how he had ever come to be chosen for
the office. But the others all had the look of elders, and carried with
them the full respect and affection of t