"MacLeod mentioned me, eh? Did he intimate that meeting me might prove a

doubtful pleasure for a gentleman of your calling?"

That momentarily served to heighten Mr. Thompson's embarrassment--like a

flank attack while he was in the act of waving a flag of truce. But he

perceived that there was no malice in the words, only a flash of ironic

humor. Carr chuckled dryly.

"Meet Mr. Tommy Ashe, Mr. Thompson," he said. "Mr. Ashe is, like

yourself, a newcomer to Lone Moose. You may be able to exchange mutual

curses on the country. People usually do at first."

"I've been hereabouts six months," Ashe smiled as he rose to shake

hands. (Carr's friendliness seemed a trifle negative, reserved; he had

not offered his hand.) "That means newly come, as time is reckoned here," Carr remarked. "It

takes at least a generation to make one permanent. Have a seat, Mr.

Thompson. What do you think, so far, of the country you have selected

for the scene of your operations?"

The slightly ironic inflection was not lost upon Thompson. It nettled

him a little, but it was too intangible to be resented, and in any case

he had no ready defence against that sort of thing. He took a third

chair between the two of them and occupied himself a moment

exterminating a few mosquitoes which had followed him from the grassy

floor of the meadow and now slyly sought to find painful lodgment upon

his face and neck.

"To tell the truth," he said at last, "everything is so different from

my expectations that I find myself a bit uncertain. One

finds--well--certain drawbacks."

"Material or spiritual?" Carr inquired gravely.

The Reverend Thompson considered.

"Both," he answered briefly.

This was the most candid admission he had ever permitted himself. Carr

laughed quietly.

"Well," said he, "we are a primitive folk in a primitive region. But I

daresay you hope to accomplish a vast change for the better in us, if

not in the country?"

Again there was that suggestion of mockery, veiled, scarcely

perceptible, a matter of inflection. Mr. Thompson found himself uttering

an entirely unpremeditated reply.

"Which I daresay you doubt, Mr. Carr. You seem to be fully aware of my

mission here, and rather dubious as to its merit."

Carr smiled.

"News travels fast in a country where even a passing stranger is a

notable event," he remarked. "Naturally one draws certain conclusions

when one hears that a minister has arrived in one's vicinity. As to my

doubts--first and last I've seen three different men sent here by your

Board of Home Missions. They have made no more of an impression than a

pebble chucked into the lake. Your Board of Missions must be a visionary

lot. They should come here in a body. This country would destroy some of

their cherished illusions."




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