Douglas nodded.  “We’ll wear ’em down.  See if we don’t.  The kids certainly put it over on me.  I was feeling safe as long as I could watch Scott and Jimmy, and they had Grandma Brown’s grandson doing the work for them.”  He chuckled and shook his head.  “I just can’t head them off on that kind of work.  All we can do, as I say, is to wear them down.  And maybe we can win Judith and one or two of the others, right soon.”

Mr. Fowler sighed.  “We can certainly interest some of the older people for a while with a discussion like we had this afternoon.  But not the young people.  Beauty and emotion and mystery must make the religious appeal to young folks.  A church can’t exist as a debating society.”

Douglas turned this over in his mind, finally focussing his thoughts on Inez; she who loved beauty and dragged her emotions in the mire.

“Mr. Fowler,” he said finally, “I’ll bet Inez would have been a very religious person if she’d been started with the beauty and emotion and mystery!”

“That’s a queer thing to say!” The preacher’s voice was a little resentful.

Douglas went on as if he had not heard.  “But you can’t get Judith that way.  She hasn’t any emotions except temper and a sense of humor!”

“There isn’t a woman born who isn’t full of emotion,” said Mr. Fowler, dryly.  “And the deeper they conceal it, the more they have.  I think I’ll go to bed, Douglas.  I feel as if I’d come through a hard day.”

“Same here,” agreed Douglas, and shortly the cabin was in darkness.

For a day or so the preacher stayed quietly in and about the cabin.  He swept the chapel and cleaned out the stove and polished the windows and each day made a little fire.  Douglas frequently found him there at night, on his knees.  At least once a day he said, “It was a wonderful thing, Doug, for a young man like you to build me this little chapel, in my old age.”  He insisted on grace before meals and a chapter aloud from the Bible before bed.  Douglas was embarrassed but entirely acquiescent.  Mr. Fowler was to have a free hand with his spiritual development.

About the middle of the week, Judith rode down to the post-office with Douglas.  “Well, how’s the sky pilot and his disciple?” she asked.

“I believe the old boy is almost happy,” replied Douglas.  “He thinks that little old church I built is pretty fine.”

“Inez says it looks like a big cow stable.”

“That’s nice of Inez.  Why didn’t she tell me how to make it better looking?”

“What does Inez care about it?  Honest, Doug, you are making an awful fool of yourself.  A man like Fowler can’t preach to us.”

“Why, he never had a chance to preach here yet!” exclaimed Douglas.  “And, what do you expect in a place like Lost Chief, a ten-thousand-dollar-a-year sky pilot?  Besides, I don’t want preaching from him.  I want just the one thing like Peter said.  And Fowler has that in him just as strong as the highest paid preacher in the world.  Give him a show, Judith.  Come up, every Sunday.  You might back me that much.”