There was one bond between him and the Kentucky Colonel:  they were both religious men; and although Mac was blue Presbyterian and an inveterate theologian, somehow, out here in the wilderness, it was more possible to forgive a man for illusions about the Apostolic Succession and mistaken views upon Church government.  The Colonel, at all events, was not so lax but what he was ready to back up the Calvinist in an endeavour to keep the Sabbath (with a careful compromise between church and chapel) and help him to conduct a Saturday-night Bible-class.

But if the Boy attended the Bible-class with fervour and aired his heresies with uncommon gusto, if he took with equal geniality Colonel Warren’s staid remonstrance and Mac’s fiery objurgation, Sunday morning invariably found him more “agnostic” than ever, stoutly declining to recognise the necessity for “service.”  For this was an occasion when you couldn’t argue or floor anybody, or hope to make Mac “hoppin’ mad,” or have the smallest kind of a shindy.  The Colonel read the lessons, Mac prayed, and they all sang, particularly O’Flynn.  Now, the Boy couldn’t sing a note, so there was no fair division of entertainment, wherefore he would go off into the woods with his gun for company, and the Catholic O’Flynn, and even Potts, were in better odour than he “down in camp” on Sundays.  So far you may travel, and yet not escape the tyranny of the “outworn creeds.”

The Boy came back a full hour before service on the second Sunday with a couple of grouse and a beaming countenance.  Mac, who was cook that week, was the only man left in the tent.  He looked agreeably surprised at the apparition.

“Hello!” says he more pleasantly than his Sunday gloom usually permitted.  “Back in time for service?”

“I’ve found a native,” says the Boy, speaking as proudly as any Columbus.  “He’s hurt his foot, and he’s only got one eye, but he’s splendid.  Told me no end of things.  He’s coming here as fast as his foot will let him—­he and three other Indians—­Esquimaux, I mean.  They haven’t had anything to eat but berries and roots for seven days.”

The Boy was feverishly overhauling the provisions behind the stove.

“Look here,” says Mac, “hold on there.  I don’t know that we’ve come all this way to feed a lot o’ dirty savages.”

“But they’re starving.”  Then, seeing that that fact did not produce the desired impression:  “My savage is an awfully good fellow.  He—­he’s a converted savage, seems to be quite a Christian.”  Then, hastily following up his advantage:  “He’s been taught English by the Jesuits at the mission forty miles above us, on the river.  He can give us a whole heap o’ tips.”

Mac was slowly bringing out a small panful of cold boiled beans.

“There are four of them,” said the Boy—­“big fellows, almost as big as our Colonel, and awful hungry.”

Mac looked at the handful of beans and then at the small sheet-iron stove.