“Ye—h—h!” Björk answered through shut teeth. An instant longer he stood silent, with his hairy hands clenched, and a barely perceptible forward and backward swaying of the tense body. Then, with an effort as of forcing steel to part, he opened his welded lips and said rapidly in Swedish, “Have we not fed the hungry?” “Aye,” said Christianson. “Have we not nursed the sick? Have we not preached the Gospel to every creature?” “Aye, aye,” from Christianson. “Have we not kept the law?” With each question nearer and nearer Björk brought the black menace of his face. “Have we not had the faith that moveth mountains? Have we not served in hardship? Have we not waited in poverty till this hour?” “_Till_ this hour?” said Christianson, getting up slowly out of his chair. Björk arrested his own dreamlike advance with a suddenness that seemed to wake him. He stopped, looked round, and clutched at the back of a chair. “Shut the door,” he commanded. His chief obeyed. When Christianson turned round again, Björk was staring over the reindeer-herder’s head, piercing the infinite depths of space, while he held tight to every-day existence by the back of a chair. “Brethren,” he said, “the angel of the Lord has been with me. He has shown me great riches.” Hjalmar the herder pulled himself together and shook off his growing nervousness. There was nothing uncanny in this after all. A vision of riches was only too common since the Klondike had crazed men’s brains. Björk saw that even Christianson looked less moved. “I tell you,” the seer burst out, “this is the answer to all our prayer, the reward of all our work. The angel took me westward up the coast. I see it now!” He unlocked his clutching hands, raised them outstretched on a level with his eyes and with hypnotic slowness moved the right hand east, the left one west. “A sand-spit,” he said, “where the heathen gather. Beyond—a flat country, where no tree grows. But the river mouth is choked with sea-drift. A strange shaped hill. One of old Thor’s workshops. Where _he_ hammered the sword of the gods, _we_ shall forge weapons against the ungodly. Weapons of gold. For the river of that country—the angel showed me the sands of it! And the sands, Christianson, the sands were full of gold!” The herder looked at Christianson and Christianson looked at the herder. The herder shook his head. Christianson sat down again in his great chair. “I tell you,” said Björk solemnly, “I see that ‘promised land’ plainer than ever I saw Kwimkuk. Plainer”—he raised his voice—“than I see you two.” But he saw them very plainly. His look leaped from one face to the other, and rage gathered on his own. “You sit there like stone. You are deaf. You are like dead men. I—I—” He looked about the room wildly as if he had forgotten where the door was. “I would go alone, but I must have provisions. I must have help with the boat—help with the—” “Y—yes, yes,” stuttered the old missionary.