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Polk was told, "We have never had any preaching here, and we don't want any." But the West Pointer was not intimidated. He persuaded a Shreveporter to lend him a house for services, posting a $600 bond against any damage that might be done by ruffians. His friends, the fur trader, borrowed a table, covered it with a white cloth on which he laid his Bible, and then went through the town, ringing a hand-bell to give notice of the service. At the last moment, when a mob, as well as a congregation, was gathering, the sunken steamer which the Bishop had raised came into port, and the crew, hearing of the disturbance, rushed to the scene of the expected riot, and declared that the Bishop should not be molested. He was no "common preacher," they said; he knew how to work, and they would like to see anyone hinder him from preaching if he wished to do so. Accordingly the service was held in quietness in the little settlement which the Bishop correctly prophesied would become the second largest city in Louisiana.

On another occasion, in the course of his third missionary visitation, Bishop Polk was riding