The preacher wet his dry lips with his tongue, forgetting himself when his thoughts began to crystallize into expression.

“I regret having spoken as I did,” he began.  “Such language is not my custom.  I was irritated because of your haste in rejecting my advances before hearing the proposition I came to submit.  I certainly respect your evident desire to be of assistance to this young woman, nor have I the slightest intention of interfering between you.  Your act in preserving her life was a truly noble one, and your loyalty to her interests since is worthy of all Christian praise.  But I believe I have a right to ask, what do you intend for the future?  Keep her with you?  Drag her about from camp to camp?  Educate her among the contaminating poison of gambling-holes and dance-halls?  Is her home hereafter to be the saloon and the rough frontier hotel? her ideal of manhood the quarrelsome gambler, and of womanhood a painted harlot?  Mr. Hampton, you are evidently a man of education, of early refinement; you have known better things; and I have come to you seeking merely to aid you in deciding this helpless young woman’s destiny.  I thought, I prayed, you would be at once interested in that purpose, and would comprehend the reasonableness of my position.”

Hampton sat silent, gazing out of the window, his eyes apparently on the lights now becoming dimly visible in the saloon opposite.  For a considerable time he made no move, and the other straightened back in his chair watching him.

“Well!” he ventured at last, “what is your proposition?” The question was quietly asked, but a slight tremor in the low voice told of repressed feeling.

“That, for the present at least, you confide this girl into the care of some worthy woman.”

“Have you any such in mind?”

“I have already discussed the matter briefly with Mrs. Herndon, wife of the superintendent of the Golden Rule mines.  She is a refined Christian lady, beyond doubt the most proper person to assume such a charge in this camp.  There is very little in such a place as this to interest a woman of her capabilities, and I believe she would be delighted to have such an opportunity for doing good.  She has no children of her own.”

Hampton flung his sodden cigar butt out of the window.  “I’ll talk it over to-morrow with—­with Miss Gillis,” he said, somewhat gruffly.  “It may be this means a good deal more to me than you suppose, parson, but I ’m bound to acknowledge there is considerable hard sense in what you have just said, and I ’ll talk it over with the girl.”

Wynkoop held out his hand cordially, and the firm grasp of the other closed over his fingers.

“I don’t exactly know why I didn’t kick you downstairs,” the latter commented, as though still in wonder at himself.  “Never remember being quite so considerate before, but I reckon you must have come at me in about the right way.”