CHAPTER XXVI--THREATENING WEATHER

Joe Hurley had taken a new lease on cheerfulness; yet he scarcely could have explained why his condition of mind had so suddenly improved. But it was not difficult for him to put a digit upon that very moment of time when this new feeling had dawned in his mind.

It was when, with Hunt, he had plowed his way through the driving storm to the nook under the sheltering cliff and had, seemingly, by instinct, found Betty Hunt rather than Nell Blossom.

Joe told himself that this very fact--that he had stumbled upon Betty rather than Nell--was a miracle of love.

All the time they were beating through the blizzard, crossing the icy river and climbing the steep path, it seemed to Joe that Betty had been calling to him. It had been the most natural thing in the world that at the end of the fearful struggle he should find in his arms the girl whom he loved and whose peril had caused him such anguish.

And Betty did, quite of her own volition, enter that shelter. It was no mistake, no chance happening. Betty did not think he was her brother. "Oh, Joe! I was sure you would find us," she had said.

Joe did not overlook the confession Betty had made that there was a man back East who must, in some way, hold her promise if not her affections. But Joe hoped that by now Betty had taken time to compare that unknown with himself; and that he, Joe, had a chance. He decided to await Betty's good pleasure.

At least, Joe Hurley's recklessness was submerged once more in those better qualities that the Reverend Willett Ford Hunt warmly liked. Joe was bound to be the parson's chief assistant and backer in all his efforts for the betterment of Canyon Pass. And Hunt faced now--he had seen it coming of course--a situation that must practically make effective or mar seriously all that he had striven for since he had come West.

This emergency came up for discussion that Saturday night in Bill Judson's Three Star Grocery. The interest of the more decent element of the town's population was centering in the church and in Parson Hunt's work. This was a rallying point for all progressive effort and determination in Canyon Pass.

In addition, the happenings of the past week seemed to have focused on Hunt and the good work the eyes of all those Passonians who possessed vision at all. The almost tragic brawl in Tolley's Grub Stake had aroused a great deal of warm discussion. What did Canyon Pass and Canyon County have a sheriff for, if roughnecks were to go armed--and use those arms--just as they had been wont to do in the old days?

"Why, we're plumb civilized now. We ain't supposed to go around wearin' shootin'-irons and pluggin' holes in store-fronts and citizens' hats. If a bunch of cow-punchers came riotin' in yere and started to shoot up the camp, Sheriff Blaney would show 'em what-for, blame sudden."

"Youbetcha!" agreed one of the storekeeper's listeners. "That's a true word, Bill. If a man means to be peaceable, why go ironed at all?"

"That's just it," complained the gangling Smithy. "There's them that ain't for peace. That's why the rest of us hafter go heeled."

Smithy had been waiting on customers with a gun belted to his waist ever since the night he had lost two teeth and gained a black eye. Perhaps the evidence of this gun so prominently displayed had saved the gangling clerk from much hectoring comment that he might otherwise have suffered from some of the patrons of the Three Star.

However, Smithy basked in a certain heroic light. He had been the first to resent Tolley's scurrilous tale about Nell Blossom, and no matter what Joe Hurley and the parson had done later, Smithy's small share of glory could not be ignored. On this very afternoon Nell herself had come into the Three Star Grocery and thanked Smithy very sweetly for his courageously expressed opinion on her behalf, the result of which had rather marred what good looks Smithy had ever been able to lay claim to.

"Layin' off whatever that boy's mother said about him when he was an infant," drawled Judson, "nobody ever could honestly say that Smithy should take a medal for good looks. Now he looks plumb woeful! I come pretty near bustin' out crying when I look at him."

"Oh, it's not as bad as all that, Bill Judson, and you know it," Nell declared. "Don't you believe him, Smithy. I don't think it hurts your looks any."

"It couldn't," was Judson's grim comment.

But this missed Smithy. He fairly gasped with pleasure at Nell's statement.

"Don't you mind about it, Miss Nell," he said. "I was goin' to have them teeth drawed, anyway. I'll get gold ones. And I'd have 'em all knocked out if 'twould do you a mite of good."

Now that the conclave between the serious-minded citizens had begun, even Smithy was listened to with some respect. Besides, the gangling one put forward an unmistakably pregnant fact.

"If it wasn't for Tolley and his gang, wouldn't none of us hafter tote guns," Smithy observed.

"Surest thing you know!" exclaimed Collins. "Run them out o' town and the decent men here wouldn't hafter develop saddle-galls from wearing ten pound or more of iron and lead belted around their waists. Yes, sir! I'm in favor of reviving the old vigilance committee and running these yere undesirable citizens out into the Topaz."

"What would become of them?" put in Hunt mildly.

"Let 'em 'root, hog, or die'!" muttered Judson. "Tolley, of course, has got a stake yere. We can't take a man's property away from him. But those hangers-on of his----"

"It is a part of Tolley's stake that is the immediate cause of this discussion, gentlemen," put in the parson again. "Tolley still owns the place in which we hold our meetings, and Judson's lease will soon run out."

"Run Tolley out," said Smithy, who had now enthusiastically taken sides with the church people, "and you needn't worry about that shack."

"Maybe he would sell," Hurley suggested.

"You try to buy it," and Judson grinned. "His eye teeth has done been cut a far time back. Tolley ain't that kind of a fool. He is wise to the idea that we'd like to buy that place. If you paved the shack floor with gold eagles Tolley wouldn't bite."

"He'd like to bust up the church and run the parson out, if you ask me," was the comment of another bystander. "And he's got a sharp side-pardner now, boys. I hear tell Dick the Devil is a-hintin' that things will go different in Canyon Pass, now that he's come back."

"How's that?" asked Hurley quickly, his eyes sparkling as they always did when his temper was ruffled. "What's Dick got to say about it?"

"He don't favor no parson. He says so."

"Looks to me," drawled Judson, "that it's comin' close to a show-down. Either we folks that want a church and decency has got to cave in, or we got to fight."

"The right kind of fighting, I hope," said Hunt quickly. "We must hold our own without open quarreling."

"Well, it won't be peaceful when we try to hold onto Tolley's shack," growled Jib Collins.

"Look yere," queried a voice from the dark end of the store, "what have you shorthorns been doin' all this time you've had a parson? Why ain't ye built him a church?"

"Another county heard from!" snapped Judson, as old Steve Siebert came forward. "Easy enough to ask that."

"Why don't ye answer it?" asked the old prospector. "I see you have got yere in Canyon Pass a blame good parson. I never seen one I liked better. I ain't heard him preach, and I ain't been to your meetin's. But any parson that can walk barehanded up to a gang like that Boss Tolley and his whelps gets my vote, and he can have everything I've got when he wants it for his church."

"Them that ain't got nawthin' can easy give it away," muttered Judson.

But it was another voice that ruffled the serenity of Steve Siebert. On a box by the door the hooped figure of Andy McCann straightened up.

"I reckon," he sneered, "that that old gray-backed lizard has got him a poke full o' nuggets out in the Topaz, and he's goin' to hand it over for to pay for a church edifice," and his senile giggle was more maddening than the laughter of the crowd.

"I likely brought in full as much as yonder ground-owl ever scooped out o' the ground. But ye don't answer my question, neither. Why ain't you fellers made some preparation for buildin'?"

"Mr. Siebert," said the parson soothingly, "the men and women interested in our work have subscribed several hundred dollars toward a building fund. But we are none of us prepared to finance such a work as yet. We wish to put up a fairly good structure when we get at it. We cannot freight in the frame and heavier timbers. They must be cut and sawn on the spot. The expense of getting in a mill, aside from the labor, is enormous."

"I reckon these hard-shells have tol' you that because their pockets squeal ev'ry time they put their hands in 'em," growled Siebert. "I know 'em."

"Look here, old-timer," said Joe Hurley, sharply, "we figure it will cost close to ten thousand dollars to put up a church. What do you say to that?"

"Put your hand in your poke and hand over ten thousand in dust, you miser'ble desert rat!" cackled Andy McCann.

"And how much of it can you rake up, after prospectin' this country for nigh on to thutty years?" was Steve's answer, glowering at his enemy.

"Wal, dern your hide! there was a time when I might ha' done my share of it without weepin' none," muttered Andy. "And if it hadn't been for you----"

"Is that so?" cried the other old man, his face ablaze with wrath. "And how about me bein' right in sight once't of the most promisin' lead that ever was uncovered in Canyon County?"

"If it hadn't been for you," rejoined Andy, "I would ha' been rollin' in wealth. And you know it--dad burn your hide!"

"Look here," interjected Joe Hurley, interested rather than amused. "If you both tell the truth, you must have together struck a rich streak. Why didn't you develop it? You were partners, weren't you?"

"Me, pardners with that yere!" croaked Steve.

"D'ye think for one moment," demanded Andy, "that I'd help make that feller's fortune? Not on your tintype!"

Here Judson, with enormous disgust, broke into the discussion. "Dad burn it!" he exclaimed, "this ain't helpin' none to build the parson a church."

The others were laughing uproariously. Steve and Andy glared at each other like two angry dogs with a strong fence between them. But slowly their fierce expressions changed. Hunt, who was watching them with something more than idle curiosity, saw that both old men began to look slyly at each other as they calmed down. The others paid no further attention to Steve and Andy, the flurry of their verbal battle being over. But in the rheumy eyes of Andy there grew a light which seemed to register some secret amusement, while Steve's toothless grin displayed a humorous appreciation of a phase of the argument that the bystanders in general quite failed to catch.

"Now," thought the Reverend Willett Ford Hunt, "I wonder, to use one of Joe's favorite expressions, what those two old fellows have up their sleeves. Perhaps the joke is on Canyon Pass, rather than on these two queer old prospectors. I wonder!"