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
only because I need your ministrations cruelly."

"I am rejoiced that in your difficulties you turn to the consolations
of the Church," replied the other in the cordial tones of the man who
is always ready. "Pray be seated. He whose soul thirsteth need offer
no apology to the keeper of the spiritual fountains."