Rosabell Pickett and her piano, a small upright instrument of a rather uncertain tone, was of great assistance. Without her help the strangely awkward congregation could scarcely have raised a hymn. Hunt made no comment upon the inauguration of the new régime in the town. He conducted the service just as he might have conducted a mission meeting at Ditson Corners. And he preached as carefully thought-out a discourse as was his wont, although his theme was simple. He held their respectful attention and, he believed, won their undivided interest. After the close of the service the Bible was rescued by two of the women and cleansed of the pepper which had been so plentifully shaken into it. Mother Tubbs took Hunt aside. “I’m plumb ashamed, parson!” she said indignantly. “To think that Nell Blossom done such a trick on you!” “Nell Blossom?” “She done it,” said the old woman with conviction. “I missed my box o’ red pepper last evening; but I had no idee what that flighty gal took it for. And then she said when I tried to get her to come to meetin’ this mornin’ that she reckoned it would be too hot up yere for her, and said for me to keep out o’ the front seats.” “Ah!” “She reckoned you’d get to thumping the Book in the middle of the sermon, maybe. When Boss Tolley hears tell how it come, he won’t love Nell none the better, I reckon.” The peppering of the pulpit Bible might have made the whole of Canyon Pass roar with laughter and have brought nothing but ridicule on the parson had Hunt been the actual victim of Nell Blossom’s impish trick. That Boss Tolley chanced to suffer yielded a number of the townspeople much amusement. But it afforded others an opportunity to show stronger approval of what Hunt and his coworkers were trying to do. Then, there was a third party. It was chiefly made up of Boss Tolley’s friends. Tolley raved against both Hunt and Nell Blossom, and his satellites listened and agreed with him. There began to be whispered about Canyon Pass a story to the effect that the absent Dick Beckworth would never be seen by mortal eye again, that he had left town in Nell Blossom’s company, and that the cabaret singer, if anybody, could explain how Dick’s horse had come to be found under a heap of fallen gravel at the edge of Runaway River. Joe Hurley did not chance to hear these whispers for some time. In truth, during the weeks immediately following that first service in Tolley’s old shack, the owner of the Great Hope had found his time fully occupied by two interests. The mine itself was one, for he believed he was close upon the unveiling of that rich vein which he had always believed was the “mother lode” of his claim. The second interest was in Betty Hunt.