Burned Bridges

tly followed by two more. Then the gleeful yipping of Tomm

he boy. F

her voice, one that immediately set up in him an involuntar

nother wounded one, s

h the excited barking of the brown dog as he retrieved the slaughtered ducks. After a time silence fell. Thompson's nos

te's instructions. If the biscuits had not scorched probably they would have been hopelessly soggy, dismal things compared to the brown discs Mike had turned out of the same oven. One

d nothing because, like Archimedes, he lacked a foothold from which to apply his leverage. He had the intelligence to perceive that these people had no pressing wants which they looked to him to supply, that they were apparently impervious to any me

There was no getting away from them. Thrown at last upon his own resources he began to take stock of his needs, his instincts, his impulses, and to compare them with the needs and instincts and impulses of a more Godless humanity,-and he could not escape certain conclusions. Faith may move mountains, but chiefly throug

urely mechanical theory of the universe, it doesn't make much difference which you hold to if you do

on, and he only attained them by the use of his muscle and the exercise of his intellect. Strength and skill-plus application. Nothing else gets either an individual or a race forward. Don't you see the force of that? Here is man with his fundamental, undeniable needs. Here is the earth with the fullness thereof. There's nothing mysterious or supernatural about it. Brain and brawn applied to the problems of

of waterfowl, he was thinking over what Carr had said. He dissented. Oh, he dissented with a vigor that was almost bitterness, because the smiling quirk of Sam Carr's lips when he uttered the last sentence gave it something of a pers

akes the sun and the air for granted. His meals had been provided. His bed had been provided. The funds which had clothed and educated him and trained him for the ministry had been provided, and likewise his transportation to t

etting a first-hand lesson in economics-and domestic science of a sort! Spiritually he was a little bit aghast, amazed that the Almighty did not personally intervene to save a man from his own ineffi

of giving value for value received. He had received much; he had returned nothing except perfunctory thanks. And what had he to give? Even t

becoming involved in a maze of speculation, in which he could o

fternoon teacups, had acquired a nice taste in that beverage) he saw Tommy Ashe and Sophie Carr pass along one edge of his clearing, a cluster of bright-winged ducks slung over Tommy's shoulder, their voices floating across to him as if they

ing, and also when rain dampened the atmosphere, these pests still kept a man's hands busy wa

make the lips of a careful housekeeper pucker in disdain,

as put to, the loneliness, the perplexities and trials of the spirit. Just as an educated humanitarian coming upon an illiterate people would gladly banish their illiteracy, so Thompson was resolved to banish what he deemed the s

adow as the Man of Galilee gathered his disciples about him. The climate was against that simple procedure. There

gles with the language. Whatever the defects of his training for what he considered his life work, he had considerable power of application. He might get discouraged, but he was not a quitter. He kept trying. This took the form of studying the Athabascan gutturals with the aid of Lachlan's second son, a boy

effort to their proper place in the structure. He could only gather how a log building could be erected by asking Lachlan, and by taking the Lone Moose cabins for his model. And he was a fearful and wonderful axeman. His log ends looked as if chewed by

the room he spoke in, big and little, short, chunky natives, and tall, thin-faced ones, and the overflow spilled into the kitchen beyond. The day was very hot, the roof low, the windows closed. There was a vitiation of the atmosphere that was not helped by a strong bodily odor, a stout and sturdy smell that came near to sickening Mr. Thompson. He was extraordinarily glad when he got outside.

putting up a sixteen-foot cabin complete from foundation to ridgelog in three days. He did not see how it could be done. He was thoroughly incredulous of that statement. But he did expect to roof in that church before the snow fe

arms and breathe deeply if his body is swaddled in clothes. His coat came off and his vest and his hat, a

standing out on brow and cheek, his sturdy neck all a-glisten with moisture. Under his thin, short-sleeved undershirt his biceps rippled and played. The flat muscle-bands across his broad chest slackened and tightened as his arms swung. For Mr. Thompson had been fashioned

er used it, never pitted his strength against the strength of other men, never worked, never striven. It had never been necessar

urned his fair skin and brought out a goodly crop of freckles, now that the vigor of his movements and the healthy perspiration had rumpled up his reddish-brown hair and put a wave in it, he could-standing up on his log-easily have passed for a husky woodsman; until some experienced eye observed him make such sorry work of a woodsman's task. He had acquired no skill with the axe. That takes time. But he made vigorous endeavor, and he was beginning to feel strength flow through hi

en his feet there was a notch cut half-way through the wood. In this white gash the blade of his axe was driven so

urfy earth absorbed footfalls, especially when that foot was shod with a buckskin moccasin. So he did not s

make a terrible

oud, in a matte

aste of labor," S

t of his body was but thinly covered by a garment that opened wide over his breast. He felt a good deal like a shy girl first appearing on the beach in an abbreviated bathing suit. But Sophie seemed unco

u say that

e Carr's. But these things had never riveted his attention. There was something about this girl that quickened every fiber of his being. And even while she made him always acutely conscious of her bodily presence, he was a little bit afraid of her. He had swift, discomforting visions of her standing afar beckoning to him, and of himself unable to resist, no matter what the penalty. She stirred up thi

before me left no trace of any-any-well, anything? There have been other missionaries. They had funds. They we

t the question or at his ea

nds and went away. Their idea of doing good seemed to consist of having a ready-made church and a ready-made congregation, and to preach nice little, ready-made religiosities on a Sunday. You can't

ows do?" he persisted. T

out the loneliness and the coarse food and the discouraging outlook. T

t Pachugan told me Mr. Carr assaulted him. That seems rathe

toward the last he showed himself up pretty badly. He developed a nasty trick of annoying little native girls. Dad thrashed him prope

felt his

"I suppose in all walks of life there are wolves in sheep's cloth

a local nuisance. I suppose in a settled, well-organized community, public opinion and convention is a check on such men. They keep within bounds because there's a heavy penalty if they don't. Up here where law and conventions and so on practically don't exist, men of a certain stamp aren'

Carr," Thompson complained. "A man can pr

lf to preaching as a profession," she said composedly. "Of course, it's perhaps

was reviled and despised," Mr.

ncarnated the first thing He would attack would be the official expounders of Christianity, with their creeds and formali

opportunity to find the truth or falsity of such a sweeping statement. You've always lived-" he looked about t

laug

and one can draw pretty fair conclusions from history, from what wise men, real thinkers, have written about this big world one has neve

st the cloth," Thompson hazarded

foolish sense of personal grievance. Dad had it once, too, but he got over it long ago. I never have. Perhaps you'll understand if I tell you. My mother was a vain, silly, emotional sort of person, it seems, with some wonderful capacity

r at the calm way in which Sophie Carr could speak to him,

ern States. It simply unrooted dad. He took me and came away up here and buried himself. Incidentally he buried me too. And I don't want to be buried. I resent being buried. I hope I shall not always be a prisoner in these woods. And I grow more and more resentful against that preacher for giving my father a jolt that made a recluse of him. Don't you see? That one

e. And she smiled quite pleasantly at Mr. Thompson in womanly inconsistenc

not for others-not by your method. It's absurd. One can help others most, I really believe, by helping oneself. I've notic

ed. It opened hazily paths of speculation he had never explored because generalizations of that sort had nev

il sounded across the meadow. Sophie stood up and waved the tin bucket she had

reek," Sophie answered Thompson's involuntary

" Thompson sh

hundred quarts or more and preserved them for winter use. But then I suppose your winter supply will eman

Tommy Ashe, set off toward the bank of Lone Moose, leaving Mr. Tho

d, or from the fact that as he sat there looking after them he found himself envying Tommy Ashe's pleasant intimacy with the girl, he could not say. Indeed, he did not inquire too

nd tired, with his axe over one shoulder, he was wondering frankly if, after all, it was either wise or necessary to establish a mission at Lone Moose. What good could he or any other

thoughts concisely. He conceded that she was a remarkable young woman in that respect. It was not her intellectual capacity which concerned him greatly, but the sunny aureole of her hair, the smiling curve of her

ne to himself the purport o