A little slice of blue appeared on the ground before him, a jay feather, and he bent to retrieve it, then dropped it on the stone ledge near the still-meditative Allen.
“My father was a devout follower of the faith,” Allen said suddenly. “He made me study the Bible as a boy, and I was supposed to attend divinity school at the Yale College. But then I came here, to the mountains. The wildness cured me of those notions. How arrogant, to think we can be better men of God by becoming scholars. When you see what the hand of God has wrought here, you know that the affairs of mankind must be but a minor distraction to him.”
Duncan had no reply.
“What always has puzzled me, McCallum, is how tribesmen like Occom and Noah take to the Scriptures. I asked Occom about it once. He said the Mysterious
