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Rick Pearson’s enraged expression suddenly gave way to a surprised recognition.”Ye may drag me through hell an’ beat me with a sootbag ef hyar ain’t the old fightin’ preacher agin!” he cried.

“I have only one thing to say to you,” said Mr. Kenyon.”You must go. I will not have you here shooting boys and breaking up a party.”

Rick demurred.”See hyar, now,” he said, ” ye’ve got no business meddlin’.”

“You must go,” Mr. Kenyon reiterated.

“Preachin’s yer business,” Rick continued; “‘pears like ye don’t ‘tend to it, though.”

“You must go.”

“S’pose I say I won’t,” said Rick, good- humoredly; “I s’pose ye’d say ye’d make me.”

“You must go,” repeated Mr. Kenyon.”I am going to take the boy home with me, but I intend to see you off first.”

Mr. Kenyon had prevented the hot-headed Kossuth from firing by keeping his hand persistently over the muzzle of the gun; and young Johns had feared to try to wrench it away lest it should discharge in the effort. Had it done so, Mr. Kenyon would have been in sweet converse with the Forty Monks in about a minute and a quarter. Kossuth had finally let go the gun, and made frantic attempts to borrow a weapon from some of his friends, but the stern authoritative mandate of the belligerent peacemaker had prevented them from gratifying him, and he now stood empty-handed beside Mr. Kenyon, who had shouldered the old rifle in an absent-minded manner, although still retaining his powerful grasp on the arm of the outlaw.

“Waal, parson,” said Rick at length, ” I’ll go, jest ter pleasure you-uns. Ye see, I ain’t forgot Shiloh.”

“I am not talking about Shiloh now,” said the old man.”You must get off at once, – all of you,” indicating the gang, who had been so whelmed in astonishment that they had not lifted a finger to aid their chief.

“Ye say ye’ll take that – that” – Rick looked hard at Kossuth while he racked his brains for an injurious epithet – “that sassy child home ter his mammy?”

“Come, I am tired of this talk,” said Mr. Kenyon; “you must go.”

Rick walked heavily to the door and out into the moonlight.”Them was good old times,” he said to Mr. Kenyon, with a regretful cadence in his peculiar drawl; “good old times, them War days. I wish they was back agin, – I wish they was back agin. I ain’t forgot Shiloh yit, though, and I ain’t a-goin’ ter. But I’ll tell ye one thing, parson,” he added, his mind reverting from ten years ago to the scene just past, as he unhitched his horse and carefully examined the saddle-girth and stirrups, “ye ‘re a mighty queer preacher, ye air, a-sittin’ up an’ lookin’ at sinners dance an’ then gittin’ in a fight that don’t consarn ye, – ye’re a mighty queer preacher! Ye ought ter be in my gang, that’s whar yeought ter be,” he exclaimed with a guffaw, as he put his foot in the stirrup, “ye’ve got a damned deal too much grit fur a preacher. But I ain’t forgot Shiloh yit, an’ I don’t mean ter, nuther.”

A shout of laughter from the gang, an oath or two, the quick tread of horses’ hoofs pressing into a gallop, and the outlaw’s troop were speeding along the narrow paths that led deep into the vistas of the moonlit summer woods.

As the old churchman, with the boy at his side and the gun still on his shoulder, ascended the rocky, precipitous slope on the opposite side of the ravine above the foaming waters of the wild mountain stream, he said but little of admonition to his companion; with the disappearance of the flame and smoke and the dangerous ruffian his martial spirit had cooled; the last words of the outlaw, the highest praise Rick Pearson could accord to the highest qualities Rick Pearson could imagine – he had grit enough to belong to the gang – had smitten a tender conscience. He, at his age, using none of the means rightfully at his command, the gentle suasion of religion, must needs rush between armed men, wrench their weapons from their hands, threatening with such violence that an outlaw and desperado, recognizing a parallel of his own belligerent and lawless spirit, should say that he ought to belong to the gang! And the heaviest scourge of the sin-laden conscience was the perception that, so far as the unsubdued old Adam went, he ought indeed.