idn't care to.

"I suppose," he said severely, "you could even make a hero out of that
hang-dog Brother Etienne."

"No, but he _could_ do something else, for he's served in the French
army."

"Then there's that mad Brother Paul. What good would he be at anything
else?"

"Well, I don't know."

"Brachet and Wills are decent enough men, but where else would they
have the power and the freedom they have at Holy Cross? Why, they live
there like feudal barons."

"Father Richmond could have done anything he chose."

"Ah, Father Richmond--" The Colonel shut his mouth suddenly, turned
about, and proceeded to crawl under his blankets, feet to the fire.

"Well?"

No answer.

"Well?" insisted the Boy.

"Oh, Father Richmond must have seen a ghost."

"_What!_"

"Take my word for it. _He_ got frightened somehow. A man like Father
Richmond has to be scared into a cassock."

The Boy's sudden laughter deepened the Colonel's own impression that
the instance chosen had not been fortunate. One man of courage knows
another man of courage when he sees him, and the Colonel knew he had
damned his own argument.

"Wouldn't care for the job myself," the Boy was saying.

"What job?"

"Scarin' Father Richmond."

The Boy sat watching the slow wet snow-flakes fall and die in the fire.
His clothes were pretty damp, but he was warm after a chilly fashion,
as warmth goes on the trail.

The Colonel suddenly put his head out from under the marmot-skin to say
discontentedly, "What you sittin' up for?"

"Oh ... for instance!" But aside from the pertness of the answer,
already it was dimly recognised as an offence for one to stay up longer
than the other.

"Can't think how it is," the Colonel growled, "that you don't see that
their principle is wrong. Through and through mediaeval, through and
through despotic. They make a virtue of weakness, a fetich of vested
authority. And it isn't American authority, either."

The Boy waited for him to quiet down. "What's the first rule," demanded
the Colonel, half sitting up, "of the most powerful Catholic Order?
Blind obedience to an old gentleman over in Italy."

"I said last night, you know," the Boy put in quite meekly, "that it
all seemed very un-American."

"Huh! Glad you can see that much." The Colonel drove his huge fist at
the provision-bag, as though to beat the stiffnecked beans into a
feathery yielding. "Blind submission don't come easy to most Americans.
The Great Republic