After a moment he pushed open the door without ceremony, and
entered. He bent his brows, studying the Reverend Archibald Crane,
while the latter, looking up startled, turned pink.

He was a pink little man, anyway, the Reverend Archibald Crane, and
why, in the inscrutability of its wisdom, the Church had sent him
out to influence strong, grim men, the Church in its inscrutable
wisdom only knows. He wore at the moment a cambric English
boating-hat to protect his bald head from the draught, a full
clerical costume as far as the trousers, which were of lavender,
and a pair of beaded moccasins faced with red. His weak little
face was pink, and two tufts of side-whiskers were nearly so. A
heavy gold-headed cane stood at his hand. When he heard the door
open he exclaimed, before raising his head, "My, these first flies
of the season do bother me so!" and then looked startled.

"Good-evening," greeted Ned Trent, stopping squarely in the centre
of the room.

The clergyman spread his arms along the desk's edge in
embarrassment.

"Good-evening," he returned, reluctantly. "Is there anything I can
do for you?" The visitor puzzled him, but was dressed as a
_voyageur_. The Reverend Archibald immediately resolved to treat
him as such.

"I wish to introduce myself as Ned Trent," went on the Free Trader
with composure, "and I have broken in on your privacy this evening