The Pilot and Bill, and, indeed, for me, too, and the other boys, who, after a day's work on the church, were always brought in by Bill or The Pilot.
Great nights for us all they were. After bacon and beans and bannocks, and occasionally potatoes, and rarely a pudding, with coffee, rich and steaming, to wash all down, pipes would follow, and then yarns of adventures, possible and impossible, all exciting and wonderful, and all received with the greatest credulity.
If, however, the powers of belief were put to too great a strain by a tale of more than ordinary marvel, Bill would follow with one of such utter impossibility that the company would feel that the limit had been reached, and the yarns would cease. But after the first week most of the time was given to The Pilot, who would read to us of the deeds of the mighty men of old, who had made and wrecked empires.
What happy nights they were to those cowboys, who had been cast up like driftwood upon this strange and lonely shore! Some of them had never known what it was to have a thought beyond the work and sport of the day. And the world into which The Pilot was ushering them
