Suddenly as he came and sat down by the fire not far from her after attending to the few supper dishes, she burst forth with a question: "Why did you do it?"
He turned to her eyes that were filled with a deep content and asked, "Do what?"
"Come here! Be a missionary! Why did you do it? You are fitted for better things. You could fill a large city church, or--even do other things in the world. Why did you do it?"
The firelight flickered on his face and showed his features fine and strong in an expression of deep feeling that gave it an exalted look. There seemed a light in his eyes that was more than firelight as he raised them upward in a swift glance and said quietly, as though it were the simplest matter in the universe: "Because my Father called me to this work. And--I doubt if there can be any better. Listen!"
And then he told her of his work while the fire burned cheerfully, and the dusk grew deeper, till the moon showed clear her silver orb riding high in starry heavens.
The mournful voice of the coyotes echoed distantly, but the girl was not frightened, for her thoughts were held by the story of the strange childlike race for whom this man among men was giving his life.
He told her of the Indian hogans, little round huts built of logs on end, and slanting to a common centre thatched with turf and straw, an opening for a door and another in the top to let out the smoke of the fire, a dirt floor, no furniture but a few blankets, sheepskins, and some tin dishes. He carried her in imagination to one such hogan where lay the little dying Indian maiden and made the picture of their barren lives so vivid that tears stood in her eyes as she listened. He told of the medicine-men, the ignorance and superstition, the snake dances and heathen rites; the wild, poetic, conservative man of the desert with his distrust, his great loving heart, his broken hopes and blind aspirations; until Hazel began to see that he really loved them, that he had seen the possibility of greatness in them, and longed to help develop it.
He told her of the Sabbath just past, when in company with his distant neighbour missionary he had gone on an evangelistic tour among the tribes far away from the mission station. He pictured the Indians sitting on rocks and stones amid the long shadows of the cedar trees, just before the sundown, listening to a sermon. He had reminded them of their Indian god Begochiddi and of Nilhchii whom the Indians believe to have made all things, the same whom white men call God; and showed them a book called the Bible which told the story of God, and of Jesus His Son who came to save men from their sin. Not one of the Indians had ever heard the name of Jesus before, nor knew anything of the great story of salvation.