Tuesday, somethin' happened at the parson's. Right off after the five-eight train come in from the south, Hairoil druv down to the deepot and got a big, square box and rushed home with it. When he come into the thirst-parlour about sun-set, the boys ast him what the parson was gittin'. He just wunk.

"I bet _I_ knows," says Dutchy. "De preacher mans buys some viskey, alretty."

Hairoil snickered. "Wal," he says, "what I carried over was nailed up good and tight, all right, all right."

Wal, say! that made the boys suspicious, and made 'em wonder if they wasn't a darned good _reason_ fer the parson not wearin' duds like other religious gents, and fer his knowin' how to ride so good. And they was _sore_--bein' that they'd stood up so strong fer him, y'

savvy.

"A cow-punch," says Monkey Mike, "'ll swaller almost _any_ ole thing, long 's it's right out on the table. But he sh.o.r.e cain't go a _hippy-crit._"

"You blamed idjits!" chips in Buckshot Millikin, him that owns such a turrible big bunch of white-faces, and was run outen Arizonaw fer rustlin' sheep, "what can y' expect of a preacher, that comes from _Williams?_"

Dutchy seen how they all felt, and he was plumb happy. "Vot I tole y'?" he ast. But pretty soon he begun to laugh on the other side of his face. "If dat preacher goes to run a bar agin me," he says, "py golly, I makes no more moneys!"

Fer a minute, he looked plumb scairt.

But the boys was plumb _disgusted_. "The parson's been playin' us fer suckers," they says to each other; "he's been a-soft-soapin'

us, a-flimflammin' us. He thinks we's as blind as day-ole kittens."

And the way that Tom-fool of a Hairoil hung 'round, lookin' wise, got under they collar. After they'd booted him outen the shebang, they all sit down on the edge of the stoop, just sayin' nothin'--but sawin'

wood.

I sit down, too.

We wasn't there more'n ten minutes when one of the fellers jumped up.

"There comes the parson now," he says.

Sh.o.r.e enough. There come the parson in his fancy two-wheel Studebaker, lookin' as perky as thunder. "Gall?" says Buckshot. "Wal, I should smile!" Under his cart, runnin' 'twixt them yalla wheels, was his spotted dawg.

I hollered in to Dutchy. "Where's you' purp, Dutch?" I ast. "The parson's haided this way."

Dutchy was as tickled as a kid with a lookin'-gla.s.s and a hammer. He dropped his bar-towel and hawled out his purp.

"Vatch me!" he says.

The parson was a good bit closter by now, settin' up straight as a telegraph pole, and a-hummin' to hisself. He was wearin' one of them caps with a cow-catcher 'hind and 'fore, knee britches, boots and a sweater.

"A svetter, mind y'!" says Dutchy.

"Be a Mother Hubbard _next,_" says Bill Rawson.

Somehow, though, as the parson come 'longside the post-office, most anybody wouldn't 'a' liked the way thinks looked. You could sorta smell somethin' explodey. He was too all-fired songful to be natu'al.

And his dawg! That speckled critter was as diff'rent from usual as the parson. His good ear was curled up way in, and he was kinda layin'

clost to the ground as he trotted along--layin' so clost he was plumb _bow-legged_.

Wal, the parson pulled up. And he'd no more'n got offen his seat when, first rattle outen the box, them dawgs mixed.

Gee whillikens! _such_ a mix! They wasn't much of the reg'lar ki-yin'.

Dutchy's purp yelped some; but the parson's? Not fer _him!_ He just got a good holt--a sh.o.r.e enough diamond hitch--on that thirst-parlour dawg, and chawed. _Say!_ And whilst he chawed, the dust riz up like they was one of them big sand-twisters goin' through Briggs City. All of a suddent, _how that spotted dawg could fight!_

Dutchy didn't know what 'd struck him. He runs out. "Come, h.e.l.lup,"

he yells to the parson.

The parson shook his head. "This street is not my private property,"

he says.

Then Dutchy jumped in and begun t' kick the parson's dawg in the snoot.

The parson walks up and stops Dutchy.

That made the Dutchman turrible mad. He didn't have no gun on him, so out he jerks his pig-sticker.

What happened next made our eyes plumb stick out. That parson side-stepped, put out a hand and a foot, and with that highfalutin'

Jewie Jitsie you read about, tumbled corn-beef-and-cabbage on to his back. Then he straddled him and slapped his face.

"Lieber!" screeched Dutchy.

"Goin' t' have any more Sunday night dances?" ast the parson. (_Bing, bang_.)

"Nein! Nein!"

"Any more" (_bing, bang_) "free Sunday suppers?"

"Nein! Nein! h.e.l.lup!"

"Goin' to change this" (_biff, biff_) "saloon's name!"

"Ya! Ya! _Gott!_"

The parson got up. "_Amen!_" he says.

Then he runs into Silverstein's, grabs a pail of water, comes out again, and throws it on to the dawgs.

The Dutchman's purp was done fer a'ready. And the other one was tired enough to quit. So when the water splashed, Dutchy got his dawg by the tail and drug him into the thirst-parlour.

But that critter of the parson's. Soon as the water touched him, them spots of hisn _begun to run_. Y' see, he wasn't the stylish keerige dawg at all! _He was a jimber-jawed bull!_

Wal, the next Sunday night, the school-house was chuck full. She wasn't there--no, Monkey Mike tole me she was visitin' down to Goldstone; but, a-course, all the _rest_ of the women folks was. And about forty-'leven cow-punchers was on hand, and Buckshot, and Rawson and Dutchy,--yas, ma'am, _Dutchy,_ we rounded _him_ up. Do y' think after such a come-off we was goin' to let that limburger run any compyt.i.tion place agin our parson?

And that night the parson stands up on the platform, his face as shiny as a milk-pan, and all smiles, and he looked over that cattle-town bunch and says, "I take fer my text this evenin', 'And the calf, and the young lion and the fatlin' shall lie down in peace t'gether.'"

CHAPTER THREE

THE PRETTIEST GAL AND THE HOMELIEST MAN