"Goodwin," said Magruder, looking at Morton with sincere pity, "forgive me; I ought not to have spoken as I did. I know you will do right, and I had no right to threaten you. Be a man; that is all. Live above reproach and act like a Christian. I am sorry you have involved yourself. It is better not to marry, maybe, though I have always maintained that a married man can live in the ministry if he is careful and has a good wife. Besides, Sister Meacham has some land." So saying, he shook hands and rode away a little distance. Then he turned back and said: "You heard that Brother Jones was dead?" "Yes." "Well, I'm going to send word to Brother Lumsden to take his place on Peterborough circuit till Conference. I suppose some young exhorter can be found to take Lumsden's place as second man on Pottawottomie Creek, and Peterborough is too important a place to be left vacant." "I'm afraid Kike won't stand it," said Morton, coldly. "Oh! I hope he will. Peterborough isn't much more unhealthy than Pottawottomie Creek. A little more intermittent fever, maybe. But it is the best I can do. The work is everything. The men are the Lord's. Lumsden is a good man, and I should hate to lose him, though. He'll stop and see you as he comes through, I suppose. I think I'd better give you the plan of his circuit, which I got the other day." After adieux, a little more friendly than the first, the two preachers parted again. Morton mounted Dolly. The day was far advanced, and he had an appointment to preach that very evening at the Salt Fork school-house. He had never yet failed to suffer from a disturbance of some sort when he had preached in this rude neighborhood; and having spoken very boldly in his last round, he was sure of a perilous encounter. But now the prospect of fighting with the wild beasts of Salt Fork was almost enchanting. It would divert him from graver apprehensions. _CHAPTER XXVI._ ENGAGEMENT. You do not like Morton in his vacillating state of mind as he rides toward Salt Fork, weighing considerations of right and wrong, of duty and disinclination, in the balance. He is not an epic hero, for epic heroes act straightforwardly, they either know by intuition just what is right, or they are like Milton's Satan, unencumbered with a sense of duty. But Morton was neither infallible nor a devil. A man of sensitive conscience cannot, even by accident, break a woman's heart without compunction. When Goodwin approached Salt Fork he was met by Burchard, now sheriff of the county, and warned that he would be attacked. Burchard begged him to turn back. Morton might have scoffed at the cowardice and time-serving of the sheriff, if he had not been under such obligations to him, and had not been touched by this new evidence of his friendship. But Goodwin had never turned back from peril in his life. "I have a right to preach at Salt Fork, Burchard," he said, "and I will do it or die."