of the twilight George’s spirits arose lightly to their level, his old faith returned to him, and he looked up with a new sense of fellowship to Joe, who was filling his pipe with his favourite “towhead.”

It’s a pity you don’t smoke,” said Joe, carefully striking a match and holding his cap before it, “for it seems a gift thrown away; and this tobacco is uncommon good, though you might fancy it a notion too strong. I’ve noticed that most preachers smoke, although they don’t take kindly to drinking. I suppose they think it wouldn’t seem the proper thing, and perhaps it wouldn’t; but there’s Parson Robinson—I should think that a good, solid drink would be a real comfort to him sometimes. He’s got a hard pull of it with a half share of victuals and a double share of children, so the two ends hardly ever see each other, much less think of meeting.”

George hesitated for reply. He thought Joe was unnecessarily rough at times, and alluded to the ministry much too frequently. He had fancied when he left home that his blue flannel and grey tweed, with rather a jovial manner, would divest him of all resemblance to a theological student, and enable him to meet his companions on the ground of a common humanity, especially as he had at present no missionary intentions excepting those that might flow indirectly from his personal influence. Still, while he wanted Joe to recognise his broad liberality, he owed it to himself not to be loose in his expression of opinion.

“Well, yes,” he said slowly, “I suppose it would help a man to forget his troubles for a time, but the getting over the spree and coming back to the same old bothers, not a bit better for the forgetting, would hardly be much comfort, even if the thing were right.”

“Maybe not,” replied Joe; “I s’pose it wouldn’t be comfortable if those were your feelin’s, but I reckon you don’t know much about it unless from hearsay. But I tell you one thing, whisky’s a friend to be trusted”—adding, slowly, with a glance at George’s face—“to get you into trouble if you let it get the upper hand of you. It’s like a woman in that! It begins with the same letter too, and that’s another likeness!”

George made no answer to this joke, over which Joe chuckled enough for both, and then returned to the charge:

“I’ve seen a good 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 might. You see, there were a good