was never tried
like the hunter's by seeing some dumb brother tortured and slain--and
that the hunter feels the test keenly, no one can doubt after seeing the
horror in his eloquent eyes. Toby never had to suffer from a broken
heart because of a lost race, or because he shared the disgrace of his
rider's dishonesty, and many noble beasts have seemed to suffer
something strangely like this. Toby never had to lend his strength to
the taking of human life, like the trooper's horse; and the soldier's
horse does not need the power of speech to tell that he suffers almost
as much in the spirit as in the flesh from the horrors of the
battle-field. Toby and his friend worked together solely for peace,
kindness, and mercy, for the relief of suffering, and the saving of
bodies and souls; all and always, solely for the good of the world, of
their fellow-creatures, and the glory of God.

Think of what it was that Father Orin and his partner did! They had
ecclesiastical jurisdiction over a strip of country which was more than
fifty miles wide and little less than four hundred miles long. This lay
on both sides of the Ohio River, much of it being the trackless forest,
so that Father Orin and Toby used the Shawnee Crossing oftener than the
Shawnees themselves. They went unharmed, too, where no other pioneers
ever dared go. Some mysterious power seemed to protect them, as the rude
cross drawn on a cabin door is said to have saved the inmates from the
savages. Father Orin and Toby thus travelled about two hundred miles
each week all the year through, without stopping for heat or cold. There
was only one church when they first began their labors, and this was the
little log chapel; but the members of that small and widely scattered
congregation were served with the offices of their religion by the
priest at many private houses which were far apart and called
"stations." There were about thirty of these in Kentucky, several in
Indiana and Illinois, and one or two in Tennessee, and Father Orin and
Toby visited them all, some as often as once a month and the others as
often as possible. To say Mass and to preach constituted but a part of
the duty which called them from place to place. They went wherever the
priest was needed to administer baptism to infants or older persons;
they went wherever any one, old or young, required instruction in
religion; they went wherever the priest was needed to hear confession;
they went far and wide, so that