ich, by Jove, was true enough--'and dainty fingers. And
a good thing it was, else our church at Loon Lake, built by his own
hands, the logs cut, shaped and set in place, sir, by his own hands,
would never have existed. He was a failure at the Fort, we are told.
Why? I made inquiries concerning that. I was told by a gentleman who
calls himself a Presbyterian--I need not mention his name--that he was
not suitable to the peculiarly select and high-toned society of that
place. No, sir, our missionary could not bow and scrape, he was a
failure at tennis, he did not shine at card parties,' and here you
could smell things sizzling. 'He could not smile upon lust. No, thank
God!' and the old chap's voice began to quiver and shake. 'In all this
he was a failure, and would to God we had more of the same kind!'
'Amen,' 'Thank God,' 'That's true,' the men around the table cried. I
thought I had struck a Methodist revival meeting."

"What else did he say?" said Brown, who could hardly contain himself
for sheer delight.

"Well, he went on then to yarn about Macgregor's work--how a church and
club house had been built in one place, and a hospital and all that
sort of thing, in another, and then he told us stories of the different
chaps who had been apparently snatched from the mouth of hell by
Macgregor, and were ready to lie down and let him walk over them. It
was great. There was an Irishman and a Frenchman, I remember, both
Roman Catholics, but both ready to swallow the Confession of Faith if
the Prospector ordered them. Yes, that was another point. Macgregor, it
seems, was a regular fiend for hunting up fellows and rooting them out
to church, and so they dubbed him 'the Prospector.' The old chief stuck
that in, I tell you. Then there was a doctor and, oh, a lot of
chaps,--a cowboy fellow named Ike, who was particularly good copy if
one could reproduce him. And then--" here Tommy hesitated--"well, it's
worth while telling. There was a girl who had gone wrong, and had been
brought back. To hear the chief tell that yarn was pretty fine. I don't
turn the waterworks on without considerable pressure, but I tell you my
tanks came pretty near overflowing when he talked about that poor girl.
And then, at the most dramatic moment--that old chap knows his
business--he brought on Macgregor, announcing him as 'the Prospector of
Frog Lake, no, Loon Lake.' Well, he was not much to look at. His hair
was not slick, and his beard looked a little li