Buck waited. His whole manner suggested indifference. Yet there was a thoughtful look in his dark eyes.
“That girl,” the Padre went on, his gaze returning to a contemplation of the fire. “She’s put me in mind of something. She’s reminded me how full of twists and cranks life is. She’s full of good. Full of good thoughts and ideals. Yet life seems to take a delight in impressing her with a burden so unwholesome as to come very nearly undoing all the good it has endowed her with. It seems queer. It seems devilish hard. But I generally notice the harder folk try in this world the heavier the cross they have to carry. Maybe it’s the law of fitness. Maybe folks must bear a burden at their full capacity so that the result may be a greater refining. I’ve thought a lot lately. Sometimes I’ve thought it’s better to sit around and—well, don’t worry with anything outside three meals a day. That’s been in weak moments. You see, we can’t help our natures. If it’s in us to do the best we know—well, we’re just going to do it, and—and hang the result.”
“H’m.” Buck grunted and waited.
“I was thinking of things around here,” the other went on. “I was wondering about the camp. It’s a stinking hole now. It’s full of everything—rotten. Yet they think it’s one huge success, and they reckon we helped them to it.”
“How?”
“Why, by feeding them when they were starving, and so making it possible for them to hang on until Nature opened her treasure-house.”
Buck nodded.
“I see.”
“All I see is—perhaps through our efforts—we’ve turned loose a hell of drunkenness and debauchery upon earth. These people—perhaps through our efforts—have been driven along the very path we would rather have saved them from. The majority will end in disaster. Some have already done so. But for our help this would not have been.”