IV. Only One Claim - Page 2

you."

Then Shock proceeded, after his habit, to give his mother a full share of what he had been enjoying. Mrs. Macgregor listened intently, pausing now and then in her knitting to ejaculate, "Well- a-well!" "Look at that, now!" "Hear to him!" When Shock had finished, Brown broke in: "It was truly magnificent, I assure you, Mrs. Macgregor, and the enthusiasm of the man! And his yarns! Oh, he is truly, great!"

"And what would he be doing at the college?" enquired the old lady. "There would not be much money there, I doubt."

"Men, mother, men," cried Shock with some excitement. "Volunteers for the Great West, and a hard time he is having, too, what with the foreign field, and needy vacancies in this country, and city pulpits, and the like."

Mrs. Macgregor sat silent, her needles flying fast and her lips pressed together.

"I wish you could have heard him, Mrs. Macgregor," said Brown, enthusiastically. "He has a tongue like a rasp, and at times it takes off the skin. That was fine, Shock, about the fellows who could not give him answer till they had asked the Lord about it. 'I find a good many men,' the old chap said, 'who, after anxiously enquiring as to the work expected of them, remuneration, prospects of advance, etc., always want to lay the matter before the Lord before giving their answer. And I am beginning to think that the Lord has some grudge against the West, for almost invariably He appears to advise these men to leave it severely alone.' Oh, it was great!" Little Brown hugged his knee in delight at the memory of that rasping tongue.

"But surely there are plenty of men," said Mrs. Macgregor a little impatiently, "for there's no want of them whateffer when a congregation falls vacant."

"That's so," replied Brown; "but you see he wants only first-class men--men ready for anything in the way of hardship, and not to be daunted by man or devil."

"Ou ay!" said the old lady, nodding her head grimly; "he will not be finding so many of yon kind."

"But it must be a great country," went on Brown. "You ought to bear him tell of the rivers with sands of gold, running through beds of coal sixty feet thick."

The old lady shook her cap at him, peering over her glasses. "Ye're a gay callant, and you will be taking your fun off me"

"But it's true. Ask Shock there."

"What?" said Shock, waking up from a deep study. Brown explained.

" Yes," said Shock. "The sands of the Saskatchewan are full of gold, and you know, mother, about the rivers in Cariboo."

"Ay, I remember fine the Cariboo, and Cariboo Cameron and his gold. But not much good did it do him, poor fellow."