bishop. Neither do I come as an owner of
property. I come because I think the cause of my friends will be
served by my coming.

"The facts I have laid before you, the warning I have given might as
well have been sent out direct through the press. But I have chosen to
come before you, with your permission, because these facts will get a
wider hearing and a more eager reading coming from this room.

"I do not seek to create sensation here. I have no doubt that some
of you are thinking that the place for a churchman to speak is in
his church. But I am willing to face that criticism. I am willing to
create sensation. I am willing that you should say that I have
gone far beyond the privilege of a witness invited to come before
your committee. I am willing, in fact, that you should put any
interpretation you like upon my use of my privilege here, only so
that my neighbours of the hills shall have their matter put squarely
and fully before all the people of the State.

"When this matter is once thoroughly understood by the people, then I
know that no branch of the lawmaking power will dare make itself
responsible for the passage of this bill."

The Bishop stood a moment, waiting for further questions. When he saw
that none were forthcoming, he thanked the committee and begged leave
to retire.

As the Bishop passed out of the room the chairman arose and declared
the public hearing closed. Witnesses, spectators and reporters
crowded out of the room and scattered through the corridors of the
Capitol. Four or five reporters bunched themselves about the elevator
shaft waiting for a car. One of them, a tow-haired boy of twenty,
summed up the matter with irreverent brevity.

"Well, it got a fine funeral, anyway," he said. "Not every bad bill
has a bishop at the obsequies."

"You can't tell," said the Associated Press man slowly; "they might
report it out in spite of all that."

"No use," said the youngster shortly. "The Senate wouldn't dare touch
it once this stuff is in the papers." And he jammed a wad of flimsy
down into his pocket.

* * * * *

Three weeks of a blistering August sun had withered the grasses of the
hills almost to a powder. The thin soil of the north country, where
the trees have been cut away, does not hold moisture; so that the heat
of the short, vicious summer goes down through the roots of the
vegetation to the rock beneath and heats it as a cooking stone.