"I am a missionary," said he, "a man of the church, a minister of the Gospel, as I would have said to you. I have come to this encampment to hold divine services among you. Red men or white, we are brethren, and we are sinners in common." The close-shut mouth, the dull flush visible beneath the tan, the flash of the eye, all bespoke him a man not devoid of courage. Yet his speech brought only rage to the other.
"Minister!" he cried. "By all the saints, no unfrocked priest shall speak words in this camp of mine! Not even a good father of the French has been present at a rendezvous of the bully boys of the mountains; and who are you, to come intruding at the frolic of the trappers? I'll have no sniveling Protestant here. So get ye gone at once!"
"Sir," said the minister, "I have ridden far, and I am not of a mind to go back." He crowded his horse forward, the more so as he saw approaching another band of men from the encampment. He could only hope that they might be of a class not quite the same as this desperado. A moment later these riders joined the group of parleyers.
"How now, what is this?" cried out the tall man who led these newcomers. "Who's the stranger? Does he carry news from the States?"
"Back with ye, Bill Williams!" cried Shunan. "'Tis but a sniveling preacher from the East, and I have told him he shall bring no psalms here."
The freshly arrived horsemen made small reply to Shunan's speech, but bent a curious gaze upon the stranger. The latter saw at a glance that these were no allies of the bully. Therefore he glanced toward them as if in appeal.
Without a word a half-score of them urged their horses round him, and separated him from Shunan's party.
"What!" cried Shunan. "You dispute me? I tell ye he will never see the sun again if he pushes himself into this camp. What do ye mean, you puny Yankees? Do ye want me to put ye on your death-beds, as I have a couple of ye before to-day? Back with ye! For I say this man shall not come into camp!"
"Shunan," broke in a quiet voice, "who gives you right to issue orders here?"
The speaker was a young man, still in his twenties; and so far from equaling in stature the giant whom he addressed, he was slight and small, not over five feet six inches in height, although of good shoulders and great depth of chest.