“This here interview is private AND confidential,” said Bill to his partner.
“Exactly,” said Hi, opening the door. At this the young fellow, who was a strapping six-footer, but soft and flabby, drew back and refused to go. He was too late. Bill's grip was on his collar and out they went into the snow, and behind them Hi closed the door. In vain the young fellow struggled to wrench himself free from the hands that had him by the shoulder and the back of the neck. I took it all in from the window. He might have been a boy for all the effect his plungings had upon the long, sinewy arms that gripped him so fiercely. After a minute's furious struggle the young fellow stood quiet, when Bill suddenly shifted his grip from the shoulder to the seat of his buckskin trousers. Then began a series of evolutions before the house—up and down, forward and back, which the unfortunate victim, with hands wildly clutching at empty air, was quite powerless to resist till he was brought up panting and gasping, subdued, to a standstill.
“I'll larn you agnostics and several other kinds of ticks,” said Bill, in a terrible voice, his drawl lengthening perceptibly. “Come round here, will you, and shove your blanked second-handed trash down our throats?” Bill paused to get words; then, bursting out in rising wrath:
“There ain't no sootable words for sich conduct. By the livin' Jeminy—” He suddenly swung his prisoner off his feet, lifted him bodily, and held him over his head at arm's length. “I've a notion to—”
“Don't! don't! for Heaven's sake!” cried the struggling wretch, “I'll stop it! I will!”
Bill at once lowered him and set him on his feet.
“All right! Shake!” he said, holding out his hand, which the other took with caution.
It was a remarkably sudden conversion and lasting in its effects. There was no more agnosticism in the little group that gathered around The Pilot for the nightly reading.
The interest in the reading kept growing night by night.
“Seems as if The Pilot was gittin' in his work,” said Bill to me; and looking at the grave, eager faces, I agreed. He was getting in his work with Bill, too; though perhaps Bill did not know it. I remember one night, when the others had gone, The Pilot was reading to us the Parable of the Talents, Bill was particularly interested in the servant who failed in his duty.