“Now then, Judge, do your duty!”

“I haven’t a parlor trick to my name,” protested Enoch.

“I like what you call our efforts!” cried Harden.  “Hit him for me, Ag!  He’s closest to you.”

“Not after the way he wallops the Ida,” grunted Agnew.  “Let Milt do it.”

“Boss,” said Jonas suddenly, “tell ’em that poem about mercy I heard you give at—­at that banquet at our house.”

Enoch smiled, took his pipe from his lips, and began: 

  “’The quality of mercy is not strained,
  It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,
  Upon the place beneath—­’”

Enoch paused a moment.  The words held a new and soul-shattering significance for him.  Then as the others waited breathlessly, he went on.  His beautiful, mellow voice, his remarkable enunciation, the magnetism of his personality stirred his little audience, just as thousands of greater audiences had been stirred by these same qualities.

When he had finished, there was a profound silence until Milton said: 

“That’s the only thing I have heard said in the Canyon that didn’t sound paltry.”

“If any of the rest of us had repeated it, though, it might have sounded so.”  Harden’s tone was dry.

“Shakespeare couldn’t sound paltry anywhere!” exclaimed Enoch.

“Hum!” sniffed Agnew.  “Depends on what and when you’re quoting.  Give us another, Judge.”

Enoch gazed thoughtfully at the fire for a moment, then slowly and quietly he gave them the prayer of Habakkuk.  The liquid phrases rolled from his lips, echoed in the Canyon, then dropped into silence.  Enoch sat with his great head bowed, his sensitive mouth compressed as if with pain.  His friends stared from him to one another, then one by one slipped away to their blankets.  When Enoch looked up, only Milton was left.

“And so,” said Enoch, “the Canyon has been a great experience for you, Milton!”

“Yes, Judge.  I became engaged to a girl who is a Catholic.  I am a Protestant, one of the easy going kind that never goes to church.  Yet, do you know, when she insisted that I turn Catholic, I wouldn’t do it?  We had a fearful time!  I didn’t have any idea there was so much creed in me as I discovered I had.  In the midst of it the opportunity came for this Canyon work, and this trip has changed the whole outlook of life for me.  Judge, creeds don’t matter any more than bridges do to a stream.  They are just a way of getting across, that’s all.  Creeds may come and creeds may go, but God goes on forever.  Nothing changes true religion.  Christ promulgated the greatest system of ethics the world has known.  The ethics of God.  He put them into practical working form for human beings.  Whatever creed helps you to live the teachings of Christ most truly, that’s the true creed for you.  That’s what the Canyon’s done for me.  And when I get out, I’m going back to Alice and let her make of me whatever will help her most.  I’m safe.  I’ve got the creed of the Colorado Canyon!”