"Get right ahead." Buck drew up a chair, and obediently filled and lit his pipe.
"Life's pretty twisted," the Padre began, his steady gray eyes smiling contemplatively. "So twisted, it makes you wonder some. That girl's happier now, because I told her there were no such things as cusses. Yes, it's all queer."
He reached out and helped himself from Buck's tobacco pouch. Then he, too, filled and lit his pipe.
"You've never asked me why I live out here," he went on presently. "Never since I've known you. Once or twice I've seen the question in your eyes, but--it never stayed there long. You don't ask many questions, do you, Buck?"
The Padre puffed slowly at his pipe. His manner was that of a man looking back upon matters which had suddenly acquired an added interest for him. Yet the talk he desired to have with this youngster inspired an ill-flavor.
"If folks want to answer questions ther' ain't no need to ask 'em." Buck's philosophy interested the other, and he nodded.
"Just so. That's how it is with me--now. I want to tell you--what you've never asked. You'll see the reason presently."
Buck waited. His whole manner suggested indifference. Yet there was a thoughtful look in his dark eyes.
"That girl," the Padre went on, his gaze returning to a contemplation of the fire. "She's put me in mind of something. She's reminded me how full of twists and cranks life is. She's full of good. Full of good thoughts and ideals. Yet life seems to take a delight in impressing her with a burden so unwholesome as to come very nearly undoing all the good it has endowed her with. It seems queer. It seems devilish hard. But I generally notice the harder folk try in this world the heavier the cross they have to carry. Maybe it's the law of fitness. Maybe folks must bear a burden at their full capacity so that the result may be a greater refining. I've thought a lot lately. Sometimes I've thought it's better to sit around and--well, don't worry with anything outside three meals a day. That's been in weak moments. You see, we can't help our natures. If it's in us to do the best we know--well, we're just going to do it, and--and hang the result."
"H'm." Buck grunted and waited.
"I was thinking of things around here," the other went on. "I was wondering about the camp. It's a stinking hole now. It's full of everything--rotten. Yet they think it's one huge success, and they reckon we helped them to it."
"How?"
"Why, by feeding them when they were starving, and so making it possible for them to hang on until Nature opened her treasure-house."