voice was fairly anguished. Down he
went again. Another mouthful of water. "_I believe in the whole Bible!_"
he screamed, and went down the third time. His voice was growing weaker,
but he came up and reiterated it without request, and was lifted out
upon the mud for a brief respite. The men of the bunk-house were
succeeding better than the Presbytery back in the East had been able to
do. The conceit was no longer visible in the face of the Reverend
Frederick. His teeth were chattering, and he was beginning to see one
really needed to believe in something when one came as near to his end
as this.

"There's just one more thing to reckon with," said Jasper Kemp,
thoughtfully. "That line of talk you was handin' out about a man dyin'
on a cross two thousand years ago bein' nothin' to you. You said you
_an' me_, but you can speak for _yourself_. We may not be much to look
at, but we ain't goin' to stand for no such slander as that. Our
missionary preaches all about that Man on the Cross, an' if you don't
need Him before you get through this little campaign of life I'll miss
my guess. Mebbe we haven't been all we might have been, but we ain't
agoin' to let you ner no one else go back on that there Cross!"

Jasper Kemp's tone was tender and solemn. As the minister lay panting
upon his back in the mud he was forced to acknowledge that at only two
other times in his life had a tone of voice so arrested his attention
and filled him with awe; once when as a boy he had been caught copying
off another's paper at examination-time, and he had been sent to the
principal's office; and again on the occasion of his mother's funeral,
as he sat in the dim church a few years ago and listened to the old
minister. For a moment now he was impressed with the wonder of the
Cross, and it suddenly seemed as if he were being arraigned before the
eyes of Him with Whom we all have to do. A kind of shame stole into his
pale, flabby face, all the smugness and complacence gone, and he a poor
wretch in the hands of his accusers. Jasper Kemp, standing over him on
the bank, looking down grimly upon him, seemed like the emissary of God
sent to condemn him, and his little, self-centered soul quailed within
him.

"Along near the end of that discourse of yours you mentioned that sin
was only misplaced energy. Well, if that's so there's a heap of your
energy gone astray this mornin', an' the time has come for you to pay
up. Speak up now an' say what you belie