"What!"
"Take my word for it. He got frightened somehow. A man like Father Richmond has to be scared into a cassock."
The Boy's sudden laughter deepened the Colonel's own impression that the instance chosen had not been fortunate. One man of courage knows another man of courage when he sees him, and the Colonel knew he had damned his own argument.
"Wouldn't care for the job myself," the Boy was saying.
"What job?"
"Scarin' Father Richmond."
The Boy sat watching the slow wet snow-flakes fall and die in the fire. His clothes were pretty damp, but he was warm after a chilly fashion, as warmth goes on the trail.
The Colonel suddenly put his head out from under the marmot-skin to say discontentedly, "What you sittin' up for?"
"Oh ... for instance!" But aside from the pertness of the answer, already it was dimly recognised as an offence for one to stay up longer than the other.
"Can't think how it is," the Colonel growled, "that you don't see that their principle is wrong. Through and through mediaeval, through and through despotic. They make a virtue of weakness, a fetich of vested authority. And it isn't American authority, either."