Fowler examined the benches and sat for a moment on several of them.  He flashed the lantern along the carefully chinked walls, the rose tints of the cedar glowing warmly back at him.  He walked slowly up and down the center aisle and paused before the platform, on which was a table and chair.  For a long time he stood with one hand on the table.  Then he said: 

“It’s beautiful, Douglas!  Beautiful!  A chapel for me!  Built by a young man that has faith in me.  Wonderful!  And built with such free-hearted care!  For me to preach in!  Why, a minister of a great metropolis might well envy me such a gift!”

He paused again, turning the lantern so that the tapestried colors of the walls again flashed forth.

“Stained glass!” half whispered the old man.  “Already it has the air of a church.  Douglas, we’ll consecrate it now.”

He knelt before the platform and Douglas bowed his head.

“O God, my Father and my Shepherd,” said Fowler, “You have led my wandering steps to this fragrant evidence of a young man’s heart.  How beautiful it is, O God, and how holy, You know.  Help me to keep it so, Heavenly Father, and help me to make Lost Chief find it so.  And, O God, put Your great arm about this young man and keep it there until he realizes that it is Your arm supporting him.  I thank You, O Everlasting Mercy, for leading me to this resting-place for my soul.  Amen.”

And it seemed to Douglas, bowing his head in the dusk, that the chapel itself was listening in a brooding peace.

After a moment, the old man rose and led the way out the door, which Douglas locked, then turned the key over to the preacher.

“It’s yours, now,” he said with a little, embarrassed, laugh.  “I’m only the guard.”

Fowler put the key carefully into his pocket.  “If anything should happen to that chapel, it would break my heart,” he said.

“We mustn’t let anything happen to it.  That’s our job,” returned Douglas stoutly.

The next morning, Saturday, Douglas left the preacher while he went down to his father’s place for his day’s work.  He was as nervous as a mother with her first baby all day and he galloped the Moose back up the trail long before sunset.  When Mr. Fowler waved at him from the door of the cabin, he gave a gusty sigh of relief.

While Doug was cooking the bacon for supper he asked the preacher what was to be the subject of the morrow’s sermon.

“I was going to preach on the Golden Rule,” replied Mr. Fowler.

“No,” said Douglas decidedly.  “You give ’em a talk on the hereafter and why you think there is one.”  He lighted a cigarette and cut more bacon.

“Young man, are you presuming to dictate to me how to preach the word of God?”

“I sure am!” grinning with the cigarette between his white teeth.  “I’m in this thing up to my horns and I don’t aim to make any false moves that I can help.  I’ve been reading the New Testament this summer.  So far, the most I’ve got out of it is that Christ was the most diplomatic preacher that ever lived.  Let’s be as diplomatic as we can.  What’s the use of preaching slush to a lot of sensible, hard-thinking folks who don’t believe in anything.”