Hunt never made himself offensive. He did not join the workmen at the mines or washings as a parson, but as another man, interested in their labor and in themselves. Once a mule-drawn ore wagon broke down on the road to the ore-crushers. It blocked the way of other teams. The parson took off his coat, helped raise the wagon-body so the axle could be blocked, and aided in getting on another wheel in place of the broken one. A man working alone in a ditch some distance from the Oreode was so unfortunate as to bring a rock down and get caught by the leg. His shouts for help were first heard by Hunt, who was striding along the wagon track. Without other aid the parson pried up the rock and drew the man out from under it. Then he carried the fellow, with his lacerated leg, to his shack, where he lived with his partner; and between the partner and Hunt the injured man was nursed as long as he needed attention at all. This incident was the spark that started the idea of the hospital for Canyon Pass in Hunt’s mind. He began to talk hospital to everybody, even to Slickpenny Norris. The banker threw up his hands and began to squeal at last. “That’s just it! That’s just it!” he cried. “I knew one thing would lead to another if a parson come into this town. I told that crazy Joe Hurley so. He had no business ever to have brought you here.” “What has my coming to Canyon Pass got to do with it?” Hunt asked mildly. “The need of a hospital—there are always accidents happening at the mines—was here long before I came. If a man is hurt badly he dies before help can get here. Doctor Peterby is no surgeon—and you know, Mr. Norris, he is not always to be trusted. This towns needs a place where an injured man can get surgical treatment and proper nursing.” “I don’t see why,” muttered Norris. “We were getting along quite well enough before you butted in.” Hurley, however, agreed with his friend. In spite of the fact that he seemed to have “fallen from grace” a good bit, the owner of the Great Hope was strong for all secular improvement of the town, whatever may have been his private emotions regarding the religion that Hunt represented. The movement for a hospital took form and grew. It was not these things, however, that endeared Hunt to the hearts of the rougher element of Canyon Pass. And in time—and that before fall—some of the toughest hard-rock men and muckers working in the mines and at the Eureka Washings openly praised the Reverend Willett Ford Hunt. Hunt one noon had given the men who gathered in a quiet place to eat their lunches a little talk on first aid to the injured. He had sent to Denver for several first-aid kits and was now going about from mine to mine explaining the more important uses of the articles in the box.