Mr. Cartwright took the letter and read as follows: 

* * * * *

“Dear Sir:  Mr. Barman gave me your name.  We need a minister to comfort the sick and help bury the dead.  It is a good deal to ask of you but if you feel like taking the chance of coming here I am sure you could do a lot of good.  We have doctors enough and it seems a pity that the church should fail these people when they need it most.  The ministers in Chicago seem to be too busy to come.  One of them came out for a funeral and unfortunately took the disease.  If you have the courage to come you would win the gratitude of many people.  For a month I have been taking care of the sick and up to now no harm has come to me.

Yours respectfully,
“Bim Kelso.”

* * * * *

“‘A man’s heart deviseth his way but the Lord directeth his steps,’” said Cartwright.  “For three days I have felt that He was leading me.”

“I begin to think that He has been leading me,” Samson declared.  “Bim Kelso is the person I seek.”

“I would have gone but my wife took on so I couldn’t get away,” said Cawkins.

“I’ll come back some day soon and you and I will pry the Devil out of her with the crowbar of God’s truth and mercy,” Cartwright assured him as he and Samson took the road to the north.

On their way to the Honey Creek settlement the lion-hearted minister told of swimming through flooded rivers, getting lost on the plains and suffering for food and water, of lying down to rest at night in wet clothes with no shelter but the woods, of hand to hand fights with rowdies who endeavored to sell drink or create a disturbance at his meetings.  Such was the zeal for righteousness woven by many hands into the fabric of the West.  A little before sundown they reached the settlement.

Samson asked a man in the road if he knew where they could find the nurse Bim Kelso.

“Do ye mean that angel o’ God in a white dress that takes keer o’ the sick?” the man asked.

“I guess that would be Bim,” said Samson.

“She’s over in yon’ house,” the other answered, pointing with his pipe to a cabin some twenty rods beyond them.  “Thar’s two children sick thar an’ the mammy dead an’ buried in the ground.”

“Is the plague getting worse?” Cartwright asked.

“No, I reckon it’s better.  Nobody has come down since the day before yestiddy.  Thar’s the doctor comin’.  He kin tell ye.”

A bearded man of middle age was approaching them in the saddle.

“Gentlemen, you must not stop in this neighborhood,” he warned them.  “There’s an epidemic of smallpox here.  We are trying to control it and every one must help.”

“I am Peter Cartwright, the preacher sent of God to comfort the sick and bury the dead,” said Samson’s companion.

“We welcome you, but if you stop here you will have to stay until the epidemic is over.”