"Never, never, never will I speak to you again!" cried Miss Durant.
Just then the chapel bell began to ring merrily, and at the same moment Maclane hurried toward them from the mission, an open hymnal in hand. "Come, my children, we march in, singing," he explained, pointing toward the Indians, who were forming in a procession by the chapel door. "As I am short of hymnals, you and the Sergeant will have to share one, Miss Durant. Hymn 674. 'Peace, Perfect Peace.'"
Evelyn stood still. "I absolutely decline to be associated in any way whatever with Sergeant Scarlett."
"Oh, my children!" remonstrated the minister. "How can we talk of missionizing the heathen when the Gentiles so wrangle among themselves! Ready, please! Fall into line!" Striking up the tune, he led the way.
And, somehow, in despite of her protest, Miss Durant found herself following, side by side with the hated young soldier, sharing the same hymnal, moreover, and joining her sweet voice with his manly one in praise of "Peace, Perfect Peace."
VIII.
AT THE SIGN OF THE TEMPERANCE SALOON.
"One sandwich, pie an' corfee, three-fifty! One ham an' eggs, pie, corfee, five! One whiskey on a doctor's prescription, two bits!" Thus Gumboot Annie scored off their reckonings to a party of prospectors who had patronized her lunch-tent, whereupon the prospectors meekly handed their pokes across the counter for her to weigh out the dust, according to her own liberal interpretation.
"Halt!" Barney's rich brogue rang out upon the trail. "Twinty minutes for refrishmints by request, for man and baste!"