The bearded one glanced quickly at the gambler and held out his hand.
“Let me have a deck of cards, will you?”
“Cards?” queried the gambler, “I have no cards.”
“Then you are no better heeled than I am, partner. I have no Bible, you have no cards.” He leaned down and placed a hand on the rough casket.
“Preacher Bill, I wish I had known you well enough to have something to say about you. No doubt you were a hard drinker, of very little value to any community, and showed poor judgment in objecting audibly against a run of bad poker luck, but no man can live through childhood and well into life’s narrow span without doing some good—leaving somebody better for having known you. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. Good-by, Preacher Bill.”
The bearded man straightened up and looked at the crowd.
“Friends, I ask you to try and remember the good things he has done and forget the bad. We are all children of circumstance. The Bible says, ‘The son of man goeth as it is written of him.’
“Whether or not this means that our destiny is all written out in the good book, I do not know. Perhaps poor Preacher Bill merely traveled according to what had been written of him—powerless to do otherwise. Shall we say that he was unfit? I think that is all I can say.”
“Parson,” one of the miners stepped out of the crowd and held out his hand to the old man, “if you start a church here, I’ll sure as hell go to hear yuh preach.”