The Preacher of Cedar Mountain

by Ernest Thompson Seton

  "Here, you jelly-backed cowpuncher, let me show you how to ride. Will you ride again?" he shouted to the Indian, as the latter put the roll of bills in his tobacco pouch.

  The Indian shook his head.

  "I will put that up twenty-five dollars to nothing," and Hartigan held up the twenty-five dollars he had received as hire for his horse. Again the Indian shook his head. "I'll give you that if you'll ride." Jim held up a ten, "and double it if you win."

  With a gesture, the Indian consented, received the bill, and put it with the rest. They rode to the starting post, were unceremoniously started, and Hartigan showed how much a man could do for a horse. In spite of his rider's great weight that splendid beast responded to every word, and when on the home run Hartigan used the quirt, Blazing Star seemed to know it was merely a signal, not an insulting urge, and let himself go. The Indian pony, too, was doing his utmost, but Blazing Star swept past his opponent and led at the finish by more than a length; the race was won; and Hartigan wakened up as a man out of a dream to face the awful fact that he, a minister of the gospel, had not only ridden in a horse race, but had gambled on the same.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XV

  Pat Bylow's Spree

  At the time of the incidents at Fort Ryan, Belle was away on a visit to Deadwood. Otherwise, Hartigan would surely have consulted her and profited by her calmer judgment in the matter of the race. As it was, his torturing sense of moral iniquity led him to preach a sermon in which he poured forth all the intensity of his nature. Quietly to drop the subject was not his way; he knew that every one was talking about it, so nothing would do but a public denunciation of himself, and all that followed the race track.

  The text he chose was: "My wounds stink, and are corrupt, because of my foolishness" (Psalms XXXVIII:5). Jim's thought was that once the sinner is saved, all his sins become peculiarly and especially repugnant to him. They acquire nothing less than a stench in his nostrils, and henceforth are as repellent as once they were attractive, no matter what they may be; and he enumerated drunkenness, swearing, gambling, and horse-racing. At mention of the last a smile spread over the faces of the congregation. He noted it at once, and said:

  "Yes, I know what you are thinking. You are wondering how I came to ride my horse in a race at Fort Ryan. Well, it was the devil laid a snare for me, and I fell in. But this I will say: I promise you I will never do the like again, and if each of you will stand up now and give me the same promise about your own particular besetting sin, then I'll feel that we have made a great gain, and I will be glad I rode that race after all."

  In this land of the horse no one was long inclined to take the matter seriously. A nature so buoyant as his could not long be downcast, and Hartigan's sense of sin for his part in the race was soon put behind him. Then happened an incident that gave him a chance to score a triumph.

  In a remote part of the valley some five miles back of Cedar Mountain was Bylow's Corner, a group of three or four houses near the road, the log cabins of homesteaders. These men had, indeed, few pleasures in life. Their highest notion of joy was a spree; and every month or two they would import a keg of liquor, generally of a quality unfit for human consumption. The word had been passed around that Pat Bylow had got a keg of the "real stuff," and the rest of the Corner assembled on a certain Saturday night for an orgy, which it was expected would last about two days. Word of it reached Hartigan, too, and he decided that here was a glorious opportunity to save bodies and souls at once. Without consulting any one he mounted Blazing Star, and in half an hour was at the Corner. Tying his horse to a tree, he went to the house that was the known meeting place. There were lights in the window and boisterous noises issuing forth. At the door he stopped and listened; rough voices were grumbling; there was an occasional curse, a laugh, then a woman speaking shrilly; a minute's silence, during which the sweet song of a night bird was heard in the dark bushes by the stream, whereupon a hoarse, brutalized voice shouted:

  "Oh, hurry up and start that bung, you act like a schoolgirl."

  The Preacher knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again and much louder. There was a moment's silence. Then a heavy voice:

  "Who's there?"

  "It's me," was the unhelpful reply.

  A man moved to the door again demanding:

  "Who's there?"

  "It's a friend who wants to join you."

  There was some discussion, then the door was cautiously opened. The man inside got a glimpse of the tall form of the Preacher, let off a savage snarl and oath, and attempted to slam the door. But he was not quick enough; the Preacher got his foot in and pushed irresistibly. There were curses from within and others came to help. But the Preacher was too much for them; the door went back with a clatter and he stood in the middle of the room. The rude log cabin held five men, three women, and a table on which was a small keg of whiskey and some glasses. The keg had not yet been opened, and the glasses were empty.

  "What do you want here?" growled the biggest of the men, advancing threateningly.

  "Sure, I am here to spill that accursed stuff on the ground and hold a prayer meeting in the hopes of saving your souls," was the answer.

  "Get to h—l out of this and mind your own business," he said, fingering an ugly knife he had snatched from the table.

  Hartigan did not move. As the big brute edged in, not at all quickly, for the fight was scarcely yet on, Hartigan landed a swift football drop kick under the hand that held the knife. The weapon was dashed up to the ceiling and stuck shivering in the logs, while its owner stumbled and fell with a growl of pain, one hand hanging helpless. Two other men rushed to the attack. They had no weapons, and the Preacher man[oe]uvred to take them singly. With two chops and an undercut he laid them on their backs, and the remaining men refrained from declaring war.

  "Sure now," said the Preacher, as he looked calmly around, "I regret to have the meeting open so unrestful, when it was my intention to start it with a prayer, followed by a hymn with all of you joining in. But you seemed to want it this way and, of course, I had to humour you. Now I will begin by pouring out a drink offering on the altar of God."

  He stepped toward the keg. It was unopened. He raised it in his hands and dashed it down on the floor. It bounded up unhurt. Realizing his purpose for the first time, the men gave vent to savage oaths backed by an assertion of property rights. Then, seeing that he was undeterred, they set upon him with a rush.

  Jim, it must be confessed, found a new joy in that new attack. It gave him a chance to work off his superabundant energy. The confined space of the cabin was in his favour. He blocked all attempts to encompass him, while his mighty arms did terrific execution, and when the finish came it showed the would-be revellers lying around in various positions eloquent of defeat.

  "Sure, it's mighty sorry I am, but I have to tend to my job."

  Going to the fireplace, and picking up one of the bricks used to support the logs, he smashed in the head of the keg and spilled the odorous contents on the floor. The final splash he threw toward the fire, expecting to see it blaze into a blue flame, but it acted as water and the room was filled with an evil stench. The Preacher knew what it meant; his contemptuous "Humph!" expressed it all.

  "Where are you going?" he demanded, as the tallest of the ruffians moved to the door.

  "You mind your own business. I am going home," was the answer.

  "Come back and join us, we're going to have a prayer meeting," and Jim stepped over to the door.

  "Now get down on your knees, all of ye," and he himself kneeled. The little man and two of the women followed his example.

  "Get down on your knees!" the Preacher thundered to those standing. The big fellow had got a stick of firewood for a weapon and, despite his crippled right hand, was disposed to fight.

  "Oh, ho! shillelah play," chuckled Hartigan, "that's an ould, ould game with me."

  He rose and picked up a leg of the table broken off during the struggle. It was not a heavy clu
b, but it was in skilful hands. There is one move of the shillelah that the best experts have trouble to parry, that is the direct thrust. The slash right and the slash left, the overhead or the undercut have a simple answer; but the end-on straight thrust is baffling. Jim knew this of old, and a moment later the big woodsman was on the floor with a bloody nose, a sense of shock, and a disposition to surrender.

  "Now come, every one of ye, and join in our prayer meeting. Come on," he beckoned to the other two, "or it will be me duty to knock sense into ye."

  And so he gathered that graceless group around him. Kneeling in their midst, he prayed for help to make them see that he wanted to be their friend, that he was acting for their interests, that he knew as well as they did the hankering for drink.

  "O Lord, you know. And I know that anyway that stuff was not whiskey at all, at all; that it would not burn in the fire, and I'll bet it would freeze if it were put out of doors"; and having contributed these expert remarks, he closed with, "Amen."

  "And now we will sing a hymn," and he led them in "Come to Jesus." But it was not a success, so he fell back on the praying, which was his specialty, and more than once his congregation joined in with an "amen." Sulky Big Pat had to be threatened again, for he was of fighting stock; but the prayer meeting closed without further hostilities and the orgy had been made physically impossible. As he rose, Hartigan said in his inimitable way:

  "Now, friends, I want to apologize to you all for seeming uncivil, but there are times when a man has to be a little abrupt, and if I have hurt your feelings or annoyed you in any way I am very sorry for it, because I'd rather be friends. Let's shake hands before I leave, and I will be glad to see any of you in church."

  Then a strange thing happened. The little man had shaken hands effusively, the big one sulkily, but there was one there who took the Preacher's hand warmly and in a husky voice said:

  "Mr. Hartigan, I want you to know you have made me think different. I am coming to church. I know you are right." Then turning to a woman by his side: "This is my wife—she feels as I do."

  "Thank you for coming to-night," said the woman. "You will pray for us, won't you? We will try; only it is terribly hard, once you have taken on the habit."

  "Sure, it's myself that knows it," said Hartigan. "I've been through it all, I tell you."

  There was a brotherly warmth in the Preacher's handclasp and in his words as he turned to go out in the calm and beautiful blue night. The Black Hills' coyotes howled and Blazing Star whinnied a mild remonstrance at the long desertion. The Preacher mounted and as he swung lightly down the wagon trail, he had a sense of joy, of triumph, of uplift that had seldom been his. Here for the first time he had put his great physical strength to the service of the new life. It was a consecration, so to speak, of his bodily powers. And overtopping this was another happiness, which, he was just beginning to realize, completely filled his thoughts these days: the prospect of crowning each day's adventures by telling them all to Belle.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XVI

  The New Insurance Agents

  Woman's suffrage was a disturbing question in the West of the '80's and it had not by any means passed Cedar Mountain by. There was more than one fiery dispute among the "perchers" of Shives's shop, where Jim was very fond of dropping in. Indeed the smithy was the public forum of the town.

  Hartigan had very strong views, of the oldest and most conservative type, on the sphere of woman—notwithstanding the fact that his mother had been the capable leader of men. He did not say much about this; but he assumed that the absence of his father was the sole cause of his mother's dominance. He was fond of quoting St. Paul: "Let your women keep silence in the churches ... it is a shame for women to speak in the church" (I Cor. XIV:34-35), and from this he argued that silence was woman's only duty in all public matters of administration, because it accorded with her limitations.

  Shives, being twice as old, was much less certain. He could cite Cleopatra, Catherine of Russia, Catherine de' Medici, and other familiar names to prove the woman's power; to which Hartigan replied:

  "And a fine moral lot they were! Was ever power put to more devilish use?"

  This was a jibe and not an answer. But it caused a laugh, and that always counts in debate. Then, with singular blindness to the fact that he himself was at the time being guided by a certain young woman, Jim issued his challenge:

  "If you can show me a couple that started fair and square together on equal footing and didn't end with the man as head and leader in everything to do with fighting the battle of life, I'll give in—I'm licked."

  Two mornings later, Dr. Carson was standing outside his office door, when he heard a quick stride on the boardwalk and the gay voice of the Preacher singing "Roy's Wife of Aldivallock."

  "The top of the morning to ye, Doc," was his cheery greeting; and the doctor answered:

  "Say, Jim, come here. I've got a good one for you. This is a brand-new one." They walked down the boardwalk to the place where most of the offices were and there read on a newly placed signboard the legend:

  "John and Hannah Higginbotham, Insurance Agents."

  "How is that?" said Carson, as he lit a cigar.

  "Well, I'll be—surprised," was the answer.

  As Jim looked in astonishment the door was opened and a dapper little man with a fuzzy red beard appeared.

  "Good morning, gentlemen, good morning!" he said, in a perfectly good Yankee twang. "Can I do anything for you to-day in my line? Step in, gentlemen; I'm John Higginbotham." They entered and, behind the desk, sighted a stout woman of medium size, middle age, and moderately good appearance.

  "Hannah, these are two of our fellow townsfolk, calling. Excuse me, gentlemen, I didn't get your names." He was enlightened and prattled on: "Oh, Reverend Hartigan and Dr. Carson. Good! Healing for the body and healing for the soul, and my healing is for the estate—happy trinity, isn't it? Sit down, gentlemen."

  "Can we do anything for you in our line?" said the buxom lady behind the desk, in a strong, deep voice; and now Jim noticed for the first time her square jaw and her keen eye that brightened as she spoke.

  "Not at present, thank you," said Jim. "We are merely making a neighbourly call."

  "The fact is," said Dr. Carson, "the thing that stopped us this morning was your new signboard."

  "There! There! I told you so; I told you it was good business," said the little man. "The first thing in commerce is to have a good article and the next is to win the attention of the public. I felt sure it was a good move."

  "You've got the attention of the whole town at one stroke," said Carson. "If you have the wares to follow it up——"

  "Wares! My company is The Merchants' Mutual. It is the——"

  Realizing that he had injudiciously turned on a hydrant, Carson said heartily:

  "Oh, yes, yes; of course; I should have known. Why, every one knows that The Merchants' Mutual is one of the companies. How did you come in, by rail or by the trail?"

  At this point, Hannah rose and, passing out of the door, gave a momentary glimpse of a kitchen stove with pots and kettles boiling.

  John smiled blandly, raised a flat hand with an oratorical gesture:

  "Ah, that is an important question, and bears directly on the signboard. You see, we came from Bootlebury, Massachusetts. Hannah's father was quite a man in that town, and I worked my way up till I had a little insurance office of my own and married Hannah. Well" (he didn't say "well" and he didn't say "wall," but there isn't any in-between way to spell it aright), "if I'd got all the insurance business in Bootlebury, it would not have been horses and cushions, but I didn't get half of it, and Hannah says, 'John, I think we'd getter go out West,' for, somehow, she didn't want to stay in a place where folks said she'd had a 'come down.'

  "We'd had about ten years of it, and I had just about come to her way of thinking when her dad died and left her quite well fixed. An' Hannah she had quite an eye to biz; she worked at my office desk as much
as she did at the cook stove; an' now she says to me, 'Here is where we get out.'

  "Every one was talking about the Black Hills then, and that was why we headed this way. Well, we figured out that the railway fares from St. Louis 'round to Sidney and north to the Hills were so much higher than the steamboat fare from St. Louis to Pierre, that we could save enough to buy a team of ponies and a buckboard at Pierre, and then cross the Plains with the settlers going in and be ahead by the value of the team, which would be needed in our country business anyhow."

  "Time didn't count?" interrupted Carson.

  "Not much; and we wanted to see the country."

  "By George! I wish I'd been with ye," said Jim. "If only it had been a saddle trip it would have been perfect."

  "Perfect!" exclaimed the little man; "I wish you could have seen us. The farther we went up that endless river of mud the worse it seemed; and when we landed at Pierre it did seem the last of all creation.

  "I didn't have much heart to buy the ponies, but Hannah kept with me and never once seemed to feel discouraged. But when we crossed the river with our outfit and really set out on the blank, bleak plains, I tell ye, we felt heart-sick, sore, and lonesome—at least, I did."

  At this moment Hannah came in from the kitchen and took the lead in conversation.

  "Has John been giving you an outline of our policy in the matter of lapsing premiums and residuary annuities?"

  "Now, Hannah," replied John, "I think that is a little too much like business for friendly callers."