Bald Mountain was as one of the points of the compass on his journey up this side of his diocese. He had never before missed it on a fair day. It was something more to him than a mere bare rock set on the top of other rocks. It was one of his marking posts. And when you remember that his was a charge of souls scattered over twenty thousand square miles of broken country, you will see that he had need of marking posts.
Bald Mountain was the limit of the territory which he could reach from the western side of his diocese. When he had to go into the country to the east of the mountain he must go all the way south to Albany and around by North Creek or he must go all the way north and east by Malone and Rouses Point and then south and west again into the mountains. The mountain was set in almost the geographical centre of his diocese and he had travelled towards it from north, east, south and west.
He missed his mountain now and rubbed his eyes in a troubled, perplexed way. When the train stopped at the next little station he went out on the platform for a clearer, steadier view.
Again he rubbed his eyes. The clear gap between the hills where he knew Old Forge nestled was gone. The open rift of sky that he had recognised a few moments before was now filled, as though a mountain had suddenly been moved 151 into the gap. He went back to his seat and sat watching the line of the mountains. As he watched, the whole contour of the hills that he had known was changed under his very eyes. Peaks rose where never were peaks before, and rounded, smooth skulls of mountains showed against the sky where sharp peaks should have been.
He looked once more, and a sharp, swift suspicion shot into his mind, and stayed. Then a just and terrible anger rose up in the soul of Joseph Winthrop, Bishop of Alden, for he was a man of gentle heart whose passions ran deep below a placid surface.
At Booneville he stepped off the train before it had stopped and hurried to the operator’s window to ask if any news had gone down the wire of a fire in the hills.
Jerry Hogan, the operator, sat humped up over his table “listening in” with shameless glee to a flirtatious conversation that was going over the wire, contrary to all rules and regulations of the Company, between the young lady operator at Snowden and the man in the office at Steuben.
The Bishop asked a hurried, anxious question.
Without looking up, Jerry answered sorrowfully:
“This ain’t the bulletin board. We’re busy.”