“It seems a good deal like old times. I used to go to church reg’lar, onc’t,” said Siebert. “But I miss something, parson—I sure do.”
“What’s that?” asked Hunt smiling.
“Let alone I never expected to see that old has-been at meetin’—an’ I don’t reckon he’s come for any good—I see you don’t look jest like a preacher ought to look. Say, don’t ministers dress different no more from other folks? You might be a banker or a gambler as far as your coat goes to show.”
The blunt criticism shocked Hunt not a little. Up to this time he had carefully eschewed clerical dress. He began to wonder if, after all, he was not making a mistake.
Dick Beckworth was not on the street when the parson and his sister went back to the hotel. In fact Dick had slipped out very soon after the meeting ceased and was then in conference with Boss Tolley in the little office at the end of the long bar in the Grub Stake.
“Well,” said Tolley, eagerly, “did you see her?”
“Sure as sure.”
“Is it her?” demanded the dive keeper, grinning like a wolf.
“It sure is. It’s her that was Betty Hunt.”
“Dad burn it! And she paradin’ ’round here like an unmarried woman. Dick, we got that parson on the hip.”