The next night, they camped beside a chorus of waterfalls, joyous, gurgling, laughing silver water, not the sullen silent blood red streams of the Desert that flow without a sound but the plunk of the soft bank corroding and falling in.  They could not talk.  They lay in quiet, listening to the tinkle and trill and treble of the silver flow over the stones; to the little waves lipping and lisping and lapping through the grasses; and when the moon came up, every rill showed a silver light.  Wayland was thinking,—­need I tell what he was thinking?  Was he thinking at all; or was he drinking, drinking, drinking life from a fountain of memory immanent as present consciousness?  He tossed restlessly.  He sat up with his face in his hands.  When he turned, the old man had risen and was stripping.

“A’m goin’ t’ find a pool an’ go in, Wayland.  Dry farmin’ may be good for crops; but this dry bath business o’ y’r Desert,—­’tis not for a North man.  Better come along!  If A can find it to my neck, y’ll need a cant hook to get me out ’fore daylight!”

They had come back from their plunge and were spreading the slickers above the fir branches for bed, when Matthews began to talk in a low dreamy voice, more as a man thinking out loud than one uttering a confessional.  It was the first word of religion the Ranger had heard him utter.  Wayland had really come to wonder when the old preacher prayed.  When he came to know him better, he realized that a good man may pray standing on his feet, or striding to duty, readily as on prone knees.

“‘Tis like the water o’ life, Wayland!  Men laugh at that phrase to-day!  Oh, A know vera well, we’ve no time for an old or a new dispensation nowdays.  We’re too busy wi’ the golden calf, an’ the painted woman, an’ th’ market place, an’ th’ den o’ thieves; an’ when th’ vision faileth, the people perish!  ’Ye shall have a just balance an’ a just ephah’; ‘an’ take away y’r offerings an’ y’r burnt offerings an y’r gifts, saith the Lord of Hosts.’  Ram that down the throat of y’r church-buildin’ thieves, an’ y’r bribe-givin’ pirates, who steal a billion out o’ th’ Nation’s pocket, then take out an insurance policy against a Hell, they’re no so sure doesn’t exist, by givin’ back a million t’ th’ people they’ve plundered!  Tell me y’r old dispensation’s past?  A could preach a sermon from th’ oldest book in the Bible w’ud burn up Fifth Avenue an’ have y’r churches sendin’ in a call for the p’lice t’ cart me away t’ a lunatic asylum!  Ah, yes, A know they’ll tell y’ A’m not learned an’ don’t know Hebrew!  No; but A know th’ language o’ th’ man on the street; an A know life; an’ A know God; an’ A know how to putt righteousness in the end o’ my doubled fist; which is what th’ world is wantin’.  Y’r learned men, what are they do in’ for th’ man on the street?  ’Darkening counsel without knowledge,’ while the people go gropin’ in the dark for light.

“Y’ wonder how a man, who was a whiskey smuggler an’ a gambler an’ a contractor, who could skin the Devil, comes to be a preacher, Wayland; a missionary t’ th’ Cree?”