r for the day led
the people's devotions, using the great words taught those men long ago
who knew not how to pray, "Our Father who art in Heaven."

"Blanked if he ain't bluffed again! We've got to wait till he begins to
shoot, I guess," said "Peachy," mixing his figures.

The lesson was the parable of the unforgiving debtor and the parallel
passage containing the matchless story of the sinful woman and the proud
Pharisee. In the reading of these lessons the voice, which had hitherto
carried the strident note of nervousness, mellowed into rich and
subduing fulness. The men listened with that hushed attention that they
give when words are getting to the heart. The utter simplicity of the
reader's manner, the dignity of his bearing, the quiet strength that
showed itself in every tone, and the undercurrent of emotion that
made the voice vibrate like a stringed instrument, all these, with the
marvellous authoritative tenderness of the great utterance on a theme so
closely touching their daily experience, gripped these men and held them
in complete thrall.

When the reading was done the doctor stood for some moments looking his
audience quietly in the face. He knew them all, men from the camps and
the line, men from the hills and mining claims, men from the saloons
and the gambling hells. Many he had treated professionally, some he
had himself nursed back to health, others he had rescued from those
desperate moods that end in death. Others again--and these not a few--he
had "cleaned out" at poker or "Black Jack." But to all of them he
was "white." Not so to himself. It was a very humble man and a very
penitent, that stood looking them in the face. His first words were a
confession.

"I am not worthy to stand here before you," he began, in a low, clear
tone, "God knows, you know, and I know. I am here for two reasons: one
is that I promised my brother, the Reverend Richard Boyle"--here a gasp
of surprise was audible from one and another in the audience--"a man you
know to be a good man, better than ever I can hope to be."

"Durned if he is!" grunted "Peachy" to "Mexico." "Ain't in the same
bunch!"

"An' that's thrue fer ye," answered Tommy. But "Mexico" paid no heed
to these remarks. He was staring at the speaker with the look of a man
wholly bewildered.

"And the other reason is," continued, the doctor, "that I have something
which I think it fair to tell you men. Like a lot of you, I have
carried a name that is not