The preacher set the coffee-pot on the stove, straightened himself, and shouted, “I spoke the word of God!”

“I don’t know whether there’s a God or not.  Probably there isn’t any.  But if there is, I’ll bet He never talked foolish threats that a fellow has hard work to understand.”  Mr. Fowler gasped.  “Now wait a moment,” protested Douglas.  “Don’t get mad and throw me out like I did you!  I’m a man now, and I tell you, Mr. Fowler, I’m troubled about many things and I want you to let me talk to you.”

The beautiful, sympathetic light of the shepherd of souls shone in the clergyman’s eyes.  “Talk on, my boy!  I too am troubled about many things.  But not about God.  I know Him.”

“How do you know Him?”

“By His works, the sun, the stars, the universe, through His holy word, the Bible.”

Douglas waved his hands irritably.  “Words!  Just words!  How can they mean anything to a hard-headed man like me?  Everything came out of a fire mist.  How do you know it was a mind made that fire mist?  Why couldn’t it have been a—­a—­Christ, what could it have been?” Douglas paused with lips agape with horror as he gazed on the evil of the universe.

Fowler motioned the young rider to a seat at the table.  “God bless our food and give us understanding,” he said.  Then he served Doug and sat staring thoughtfully at his own coffee-cup.  “Were you ever in love?” he finally asked Douglas.

“Yes.”

“Did she love you?”

“Not that I can find out!”

“Does she know that you love her?” pursued the minister.

“Yes, I told her so.”

“But,” said Mr. Fowler, “love isn’t something you can put your teeth in.  How can she believe you?”

“Because, I’m something she can put her teeth in!  Believe me, Mr. Fowler, if God once convinced me He was real, I’d believe anything He told me.  Just give me facts.  That’s all I want.”

“The universe is a fact.”

“Yes, but the universe being a fact doesn’t prove there’s any hereafter.  Hang it, Mr. Fowler, can’t you preachers get it through your heads that what people want you to prove to them is that there is a hereafter?  That’s all there is to your job.  Prove that and you can lead us round by the nose.  But if you can’t show us that the soul doesn’t die, there is no meaning in anything, and we might as well be like we are in Lost Chief.”

“What’s the matter with Lost Chief?” Mr. Fowler’s smile was grim.

“Peter Knight says it’s that we have no ethics.  Inez Rodman says it’s that we don’t know beauty when we see it.”

“Inez Rodman?  O, that woman of the Yellow Canyon!  If there were a minister in Lost Chief, she wouldn’t be in the Valley.”

“O, I don’t know!  Religion doesn’t seem to affect her kind, anywhere.  But Peter says we’d ought to have built a church along with the schoolhouse.  I don’t see myself how the kind of Bible stuff you teach could help a hard living, hard thinking kind of people like us.”