CLEANING THEIR SLATE
Never could castle or mansion contain more of gladness and joy of the
heart than was crowded into the modest little home of Miss Doc when at
last the prayers and ministrations of a score of men and the one
"decent" woman of the camp were rewarded by the Father all-pitiful.
"I'm goin' to bawl, and I'll lick any feller that calls me a baby!"
said the blacksmith, but he laughed and "bawled" together.
They had saved them all, but a mighty quiet Jim and a quieter little
Skeezucks and a wholly subdued little pup lay helpless still in the
care of the awkward squad of nurses.
And then a council of citizens got together at the dingy shop of Webber
for a talk. "We mustn't fergit," said the smith, "that Jim was a
takin' the poor little feller to Fremont 'cause he thought he was
pinin' away fer children's company; and I guess Jim knowed. Now, the
question is, what we goin' for to do? Little Skeezucks ain't a goin'
to be no livelier unless he gits that company--and maybe he'll up and
die of loneliness, after all. Do you fellers think we'd ought to git
up a party and take 'em all to Fremont, as soon as they're able to
stand the trip?"
Bone, the bar-keep answered: "What's the matter with gittin' the
preacher and his wife and three little gals to come back here and
settle in Borealis? I'm goin' in for minin', after a while, myself,
and I'll--and I'll give my saloon from eight to two on Sundays to be
fixed all up fer a church; and I reckon we kin support Parson Stowe as
slick as any town in all Navady."
For a moment this astonishing speech was followed by absolute silence.
Then, as if with one accord, the men all cheered in admiration.
"Let's git the parson back right off," cried the carpenter. "I kin
build the finest steeple ever was!"
"Send a gang to fetch him here to-day!" said Webber.
"I wouldn't lose no time, or he may git stuck on Fremont, and never
want to budge," added Lufkins.
Field and half a dozen more concurred.
"I'll be one to go myself," said the blacksmith, promptly. "Two or
three others can come along, and we'll git him if we have to steal
him--wife, little gals, and all!"
But the party was yet unformed for the trip when the news of the
council's intentions was spread throughout the camp, and an ugly
feature of the life in the mines was revealed.
The gambler, Parky, sufficiently recovered from the wound in his arm to
be out of his house, and planning a secret revenge against old Jim and
his friends, was more than merely opposed to the plan which had come
from the shop of Webber.
"It don't go down," said he to a crowd, with a sneer at the parson and
with oaths for Bone. "I own some Borealis property myself, and don't
you fergit I'll make things too hot for any preacher to settle in the
camp. And I 'ain't yet finished with the gang that thought they was
smart on New-Year's eve--just chew that up with your cud of tobacker!"
With half a dozen ruffians at his back--the scum of prisons,
gambling-dens, and low resorts--he summed up a menace not to be
estimated lightly. Many citizens feared to incur his wrath; many were
weak, and therefore as likely to gather to his side as not, under the
pressure he could put upon them.
The camp was suddenly ripe for a struggle. Right and decency, or
lawlessness and violence would speedily conquer. There could be no
half-way measures. If Webber and his following had been persuaded
before that Parson Stowe should have a place in the town, they were
grimly determined on the project now.
The blacksmith it was who strung up once again a bar of steel before
his shop and rang it with his hammer.
There were forty men who answered to the summons. And when they had
finished the council of war within the shop, the work of an upward lift
had been accomplished. A supplement was added to the work of signing a
short petition requesting Parson Stowe to come among them, and this
latter took the form of a mandate addressed to the gambler and his
backing of outlaws, thieves, and roughs. It was brief, but the weight
of its words was mighty.
"The space you're using in Borealis is wanted for decenter purposes,"
it read. "We give you twenty-four hours to clear out. Git!--and then
God have mercy on your souls if any one of the gang is found in
Borealis!"
This was all there was, except for a fearful drawing of a coffin and a
skull. And such an array of inky names, scrawled with obvious pains
and distinctness, was on the paper that argument itself was plainly
hand in hand with a noose of rope.
Opposition to an army of forty wrathful and determined men would have
been but suicide. Parky nodded when he read the note. He knew the
game was closed. He sold all his interests in the camp for what they
would bring and bought a pair of horses and a carriage.
In groups and pairs his henchmen--suddenly thrown over by their leader
to hustle for themselves--sneaked away from the town, many of them
leaving immediately in their dread of the grim reign of law now come
upon the camp. Parky, for his part, waited in some deliberation, and
then drove away with a sneer upon his lips when at last his time was
growing uncomfortably short.
Decency had won--the moral slate of the camp was clean!