ood deal of life, one way and another," Joe said, "but I
don't know much of parsons. Somehow they haven't been in my line; but
if I had to choose between being a parson or a doctor, I'd take the
doctor by long odds. You see the world's pretty much of a hospital as
far as he's concerned, and when he can't tinker a man up, he lets him
slide off and nobody minds; but the parson's different. When a man
takes sick he looks kind of friendly on the doctor, because, you see,
he expects him to cure him; but when the parson comes, he tells him
what a miserable sinner he is and what he's coming to at last. Now, it
ain't in nature to like that, and I don't blame the fellows who say
they can stand a parson when they are well, but that he's worse than
a break-bone fever and no water handy when they're sick. And I
shouldn't think any man would like to go about making himself
unpleasant to others! Leastways, I wouldn't. Kicking Kirby used to say
that he'd rather be a woman than a parson, and the force of language
couldn't go further than that! He knew what he was talking about, for
some of his folks were preachers; and there was good in Kirby, too!
People may say what they please, but I'll allers hold to _that_!"

"Who was he?" asked George, happy to change the subject, being a
little uneasy in his hold upon it, and hopeful of a story at last.

Joe looked over the hills.

"Well, he was a friend of mine when I was prospecting for oil, once. I
allers liked Kicking Kirby."

George sat patiently waiting, while Jim refilled his pipe and then
began:

"There ain't so much to tell, but men do curious things sometimes, and
Kirby, I guess, was a man few folks would have expected very much of.
There was hard things said of him, but he could allers strike a blow
for a friend, or hold his own with the next man, let him be who he
might. You see, there were a good many of us in camp, and we had fair
enough luck; for the men over at Digger's Run had struck a good vein,
so money was plenty and changed hands fast enough. We'd all hung
together in our camp until Clint Bowers got into trouble. None of the
rest of us wanted to get mixed up in the fuss, but somehow we did, and
the other camp fought shy of us and played mostly among themselves;
and I've allers held that it is poor fun to take out of one pocket to
put into the other. Our boys had different opinions about it, and some
of them held that it wasn't Clint's awkward work that they'd got mad
a