one
Hopalong Cassidy,--glad and thankful.

"Death cometh as a thief in the night," the voice went on. "Think of
the friends who have gone before; who were well one minute and gone the
next! And it must come to all of us, to all of us, to me and to you--"

The man with the afflicted neck started rocking the bench.

"Something is coming to somebody purty soon," murmured Hopalong. He
began to sidle over towards his neighbor, his near hand doubled up into
a huge knot of protuberant knuckles and white-streaked fingers; but as
he was about to deliver his hint that he was greatly displeased at the
antics of the bench, a sob came to his ears. Turning his head swiftly,
he caught sight of the stranger's face, and sorrow was marked so
strongly upon it that the sight made Hopalong gape. His hand opened
slowly and he cautiously sidled back again, disgruntled, puzzled,
and vexed at himself for having strayed into a game where he was so
hopelessly at sea. He thought it all over carefully and then gave it up
as being too deep for him to solve. But he determined one thing: He was
not going to leave before the other man did, anyhow.

"An' if I catch that howling kerchief outside," he muttered, smacking
his lips with satisfaction at what was in store for it. His visit
to Wallace was not very important, anyway, and it could wait on more
important events.

"There sits a sinner!" thundered out the exhorter, and Hopalong looked
stealthily around for a sight of a villain. "God only has the right to
punish. 'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord, and whosoever takes the
law into his own hands, whosoever takes human life, defies the Creator.
There sits a man who has killed his fellow-men, his brothers! Are you
not a sinner, _Cassidy_?"

Cassidy jumped clear of the bench as he jerked his head around and
stared over the suddenly outstretched arm and pointing finger of the
speaker and into his accusing eyes.

"Answer me! Are you not a sinner?"

Hopalong stood up, confused, bewildered, and then his suspended thoughts
stirred and formed. "Guilty, I reckon, an' in the first degree. But they
didn't get no more'n what was coming to 'em, no more'n they earned. An'
that's straight!"

"How do you know they didn't? How do you know they earned it? How do you
_know_?" demanded the evangelist, who was delighted with the chance to
argue with a sinner. He had great faith in "personal contact," and
his was the assurance of training, of the man well rehea