Tales of the Klondyke | Page 7

true Gospel."
"And myself. Not only do you bring trouble upon yourself, but upon us.
I was frozen in with you last winter, as you will well recollect, and I
know you for a good man and a fool. If you think it your duty to strive
with the heathen, well and good; but, do exercise some wit in the way
you go about it. This man, Red Baptiste, is no Indian. He comes of our
common stock, is as bull- necked as I ever dared be, and as wild a
fanatic the one way as you are the other. When you two come together,
hell'll be to pay, and I don't care to be mixed up in it. Understand? So
take my advice and go away. If you go down-stream, you'll fall in with
the Russians. There's bound to be Greek priests among them, and
they'll see you safe through to Bering Sea,--that's where the Yukon
empties,--and from there it won't be hard to get back to civilization.

Take my word for it and get out of here as fast as God'll let you."
"He who carries the Lord in his heart and the Gospel in his hand hath
no fear of the machinations of man or devil," the missionary answered
stoutly. "I will see this man and wrestle with him. One backslider
returned to the fold is a greater victory than a thousand heathen. He
who is strong for evil can be as mighty for good, witness Saul when he
journeyed up to Damascus to bring Christian captives to Jerusalem.
And the voice of the Saviour came to him, crying, 'Saul, Saul, why
persecutest thou me?' And therewith Paul arrayed himself on the side of
the Lord, and thereafter was most mighty in the saving of souls. And
even as thou, Paul of Tarsus, even so do I work in the vineyard of the
Lord, bearing trials and tribulations, scoffs and sneers, stripes and
punishments, for His dear sake."
"Bring up the little bag with the tea and a kettle of water," he called the
next instant to his boatmen; "not forgetting the haunch of cariboo and
the mixing-pan."
When his men, converts by his own hand, had gained the bank, the trio
fell to their knees, hands and backs burdened with camp equipage, and
offered up thanks for their passage through the wilderness and their
safe arrival. Hay Stockard looked upon the function with sneering
disapproval, the romance and solemnity of it lost to his matter-of-fact
soul. Baptiste the Red, still gazing across, recognized the familiar
postures, and remembered the girl who had shared his star-roofed
couch in the hills and forests, and the woman-child who lay somewhere
by bleak Hudson's Bay.
III
"Confound it, Baptiste, couldn't think of it. Not for a moment. Grant
that this man is a fool and of small use in the nature of things, but still,
you know, I can't give him up."
Hay Stockard paused, striving to put into speech the rude ethics of his
heart.
"He's worried me, Baptiste, in the past and now, and caused me all
manner of troubles; but can't you see, he's my own breed--white--
and--and--why, I couldn't buy my life with his, not if he was a nigger."
"So be it," Baptiste the Red made answer. "I have given you grace and
choice. I shall come presently, with my priests and fighting men, and
either shall I kill you, or you deny your god. Give up the priest to my

pleasure, and you shall depart in peace. Otherwise your trail ends here.
My people are against you to the babies. Even now have the children
stolen away your canoes." He pointed down to the river. Naked boys
had slipped down the water from the point above, cast loose the canoes,
and by then had worked them into the current. When they had drifted
out of rifle- shot they clambered over the sides and paddled ashore.
"Give me the priest, and you may have them back again. Come! Speak
your mind, but without haste."
Stockard shook his head. His glance dropped to the woman of the
Teslin Country with his boy at her breast, and he would have wavered
had he not lifted his eyes to the men before him.
"I am not afraid," Sturges Owen spoke up. "The Lord bears me in his
right hand, and alone am I ready to go into the camp of the unbeliever.
It is not too late. Faith may move mountains. Even in the eleventh hour
may I win his soul to the true righteousness."
"Trip the beggar up and make him fast," Bill whispered hoarsely in the
ear of his leader, while the missionary kept the floor and wrestled with
the heathen. "Make him hostage, and bore him if