said him nay, but watched him curiously and was sorrowful--he was so
youthful, clear of eye, and bent on doing heroical things.

But little by little there came a change. The hood was left behind at
Fort O'Glory, where it provoked the derision of the Methodist missionary
who followed him; the sermon-case stayed at Fort O'Battle; and at last
the surplice itself was put by at the Company's post at Yellow Quill. He
was too excited and in earnest at first to see the effect of his
ministrations, but there came slowly over him the knowledge that he was
talking into space. He felt something returning on him out of the air
into which he talked, and buffeting him. It was the Spirit of the North,
in which lives the terror, the large heart of things, the soul of the
past. He awoke to his inadequacy, to the fact that all these men to whom
he talked, listened, and only listened, and treated him with a gentleness
which was almost pity--as one might a woman. He had talked doctrine, the
Church, the sacraments, and at Fort O'Battle he faced definitely the
futility of his work. What was to blame--the Church--religion--himself?

It was at Fort O'Battle that he met Pierre, and heard a voice say over
his shoulder, as he walked out into the icy dusk: "The voice of one
crying in the wilderness . . . and he had sackcloth about his loins, and
his food was locusts and wild honey."

He turned to see Pierre, who in the large room of the Post had sat and
watched him as he prayed and preached. He had remarked the keen, curious
eye, the musing look, the habitual disdain at the lips. It had all
touched him, confused him; and now he had a kind of anger.

"You know it so well, why don't you preach yourself?" he said feverishly.