While we may speak lightly of Harvey's announced intention, it must not be thought that he was taking up the life of a saint in any light spirit. He was most serious. Although the deeds of Cap. Collier and Dead-Eye Dick had thrilled him, he had never seriously imagined himself becoming a detective or a bad man of the plains. He knew he was not so constituted as to follow either career successfully. He admired Cap. Collier, but he did not imagine himself becoming a Cap. Collier; he liked to read about a Dead-Eye Dick, but never wanted to be one. He felt he did not have the necessary vigor. A saint was, however, something he felt himself peculiarly fitted to be. In reading the book that had turned his thoughts toward sainthood, Harvey had admired the saints as fully and whole-heartedly as he had admired Cap. Collier and other heroes, but he had, in addition, continually imagined himself in the place of the saints of whom he was reading. He saw himself undergoing trials and tests and emerging triumphantly. He felt--as is true--that a saint is the greatest hero of all heroes, and the most deserving of praise, and the surest to receive worship and admiration. Harvey did not admire all the saints in his book equally. He preferred the sweet-hearted, non-resisting type to that which went forth seeking trouble and martyrdom, and the first suggestion of saintship in connection with himself came with the thought that it would be extremely pleasant to have nothing to do but be kind and good and gentle and sweet-tempered, doing no evil and thinking no evil. With about twenty-five dollars a month, a comfortable rocking-chair, a good-enough shack, and a sunny ex-junkyard, being a saint would be a pleasant job. Later came the thought that it would be doubly pleasant to be known, to all Riverbank, and in time to the whole world, as “the good Saint Harvey of Riverbank.” He feared Riverbank did not consider him of much importance now, that it rather scorned him, but if, by combining the austerity of a Saint Anthony and the sweetness of a Saint Francis of Assisi, he became known for his saintly qualities, there would be real tears shed when Death came to claim him. “Great land of goodness!” exclaimed Susan, when Harvey had spoken. “A saint? Are you going crazy, Harvey Redding? You look like a saint, don't you? What do you mean by such talk?” “Why, dod-baste it--” Harvey said angrily, and then, realizing what he had said, calmed suddenly. “I take that back, Susan. That swear was a slip-up. It come out because I ain't fully used to bein' a saint yet. I ain't rightly started at it yet, but I'm goin' to be if I can manage the job, an' I don't know why I can't. When I say saint I mean saint, an' that's the whole of it. I hope to live an' die clean an' sweet an' proper, free from sin an' evil, doin' no wrong--”