im talk to him an
hour, then let the Parson speak to him another hour. If he lives that
through he will be an honest man, or if not honest he will at least be
harmless."

Now they had no preacher in the Forks, not even the semblance of one
yet, neither had they a lawyer or doctor, but this Parson was a power in
the camp. He was perhaps the most popular man there. He was certainly
the most influential, for he was a man who could talk. They called him
the Parson because he was certainly the profanest man in all the mines.

The idea was novel and was at once adopted.

Here at last was a practical application of the popular feeling, in
older republics, that the officers are the servants of the public.

The little Judge here was certainly the people's servant. If he had not
been, if he had asserted himself at all and taken up arms and fortified
himself behind a barricade of books, they would simply have called a
miners' meeting in half an hour, and in half an hour would have had the
little man ousted and another man in his place, and then back to their
work as if nothing ever had happened. Never in the world had men known
such absolute liberty as was attained here. There was not even the
dominion of woman. And yet they were not happy.

They marched Washee-Washee to the Howling Wilderness, told the sentence,
and called upon the Parson to enforce judgment.

He now took a cordial and began. Washee-Washee sat before him on a
bench, leaning against the wall. The little man seemed as if he was
about to go to sleep; possibly his conscience had kept him awake the
night before, when he found that all his little investments had been a
failure in the Forks.

The Parson began. Washee-Washee flinched, jerked back, sat bolt upright,
and seemed to suffer.

Then the Parson shot another oath. This time it came like a cannon ball,
and red hot too, for Washee-Washee was almost lifted out of his seat.

Then the Parson took his breath a bit, rolled the quid of tobacco in his
mouth from left to right and from right to left, and as he did so he
selected the very broadest, knottiest, and ugliest oaths that he had
found in all his fifty years of life at sea and on the border.

Washee-Washee had lost his expression of peace. He had evidently been
terribly shaken. The Parson had rested a good spell, however, and the
little, slim, brown man before him, who had crawled out over the great
wall of China, sailed across the sea of seas, climbed t