But later in the night, when this end of Main Street was deserted and the frolicking in the various amusement places was continued only by a few irrepressibles, a figure stole out of the alley beside the old Tolley building and slipped into the room prepared for the first Sunday service in Canyon Pass. Without a light in the place the intruder had some difficulty in reaching the desk; once there, some few moments elapsed while the uninvited visitor climbed into the pulpit and opened carefully the big Bible. When the book was as carefully closed again, without the white book-marks the parson had placed in it having been disturbed, the obtrusive one departed. Outside, there seemed an air of satisfaction about the very way this unknown individual walked away. In addition, a very determined—almost viciously resolved-voice observed: “There! If that impudent pulpit-pounder don’t get his, I miss my guess!” CHAPTER XV—PEP AND A LITTLE PEPPER All Sabbaths were not fine at Canyon Pass, as Hunt realized on opening his eyes on that important morning. From the same open window through which he had viewed the chaste glories of the Topaz Range a week before, he now saw heavy, thunderous-looking clouds wrapping the peaks and surging down into the lower reaches of the landscape, blotting out, as they moved on, each monument that he had learned in this brief time of his sojourn to know. It promised no fair day for the parson’s first service. This, however, was not the basis of the heaviness that oppressed him. Hunt admitted the cause of his heart-sick feeling without dodging the issue. It was Nell Blossom and her attitude toward him personally that so troubled the parson of Canyon Pass. That she opposed the good work he was trying to inaugurate was only a side issue in Hunt’s mind. Opposition in general merely spurred a spirit like his to greater effort. That is, a frank opposition. But the minister’s personal interest in Nell Blossom had become something that controlled him. He could not control it. It was not right, he told himself, to do any poaching on what he considered Joe’s preserves. Whether or not Nell cared for the mine owner, Hunt believed he would be disloyal to his friend if he showed anything but the interest of a minister and religious adviser in the young woman. Hunt was honest enough to admit that such feeling was not what inspired him in the matter. Nell Blossom was not at all the kind of girl he would have deliberately chosen as the object of a serious affection. But who of us may choose when love enters the lists?