wills, so shall the spirit move!"

Bill reached over, plucked him to his feet, and shook him, fiercely,
silently. Then he dropped the bundle of quivering nerves and turned his
attention to the two converts. But they showed little fright and a
cheerful alacrity in preparing for the coming passage at arms.

Stockard, who had been talking in undertones with the Teslin woman, now
turned to the missionary.

"Fetch him over here," he commanded of Bill.

"Now," he ordered, when Sturges Owen had been duly deposited before him,
"make us man and wife, and be lively about it." Then he added
apologetically to Bill: "No telling how it's to end, so I just thought
I'd get my affairs straightened up."

The woman obeyed the behest of her white lord. To her the ceremony was
meaningless. By her lights she was his wife, and had been from the day
they first foregathered. The converts served as witnesses. Bill stood
over the missionary, prompting him when he stumbled. Stockard put the
responses in the woman's mouth, and when the time came, for want of
better, ringed her finger with thumb and forefinger of his own.

"Kiss the bride!" Bill thundered, and Sturges Owen was too weak to
disobey.

"Now baptize the child!"

"Neat and tidy," Bill commented.