The nearest seat, a bench made by placing a bottom board of the evangelist's wagon across two up-ended boxes, was close enough to the exhorter and he dropped into it and glanced carelessly at his nearest neighbor. The carelessness went out of his bearing as his eyes fastened themselves in a stare on the man's neck-kerchief. Hopalong was hardened to awful sights and at his best was not an artistic soul, but the villainous riot of fiery crimson, gaudy yellow, and pugnacious and domineering green which flaunted defiance and insolence from the stranger's neck caused his breath to hang over one count and then come double strong at the next exhalation. “Gee whiz!” he whispered.
The stranger slowly turned his head and looked coldly upon the impudent disturber of his reverent reflections. “Meaning?” he questioned, with an upward slant in his voice. The neck-kerchief seemed to grow suddenly malignant and about to spring. “Meaning?” repeated the other with great insolence, while his eyes looked a challenge.
While Hopalong's eyes left the scrambled color-insult and tried to banish the horrible after-image, his mind groped for the rules of etiquette governing free fist fights in gospel tents, and while he hesitated as to whether he should dent the classic profile of the color-bearer or just twist his nose as a sign of displeasure, the voice of the evangelist arose to a roar and thundered out. Hopalong ducked instinctively.
“—Stop! Stop before it is too late, before death takes you in the wallow of your sins! Repent and gain salvation—”
Hopalong felt relieved, but his face retained its expression of childlike innocence even after he realized that he was not being personally addressed; and he glanced around. It took him ninety-seven seconds to see everything there was to be seen, and his eyes were drawn irresistibly back to the stranger's kerchief. “Awful! Awful thing for a drinking man to wear, or run up against unexpectedly!” he muttered, blinking. “Worse than snakes,” he added thoughtfully.
“Look ahere, you—” began the owner of the offensive decoration, if it might be called such, but the evangelist drowned his voice in another flight of eloquence.
“—Peace! Peace is the message of the Lord to His children,” roared the voice from the upturned soap box, and when the speaker turned and looked in the direction of the two men-with-a-difference he found them sitting up very straight and apparently drinking in his words with great relish; whereupon he felt that he was making gratifying progress toward the salvation of their spotted souls. He was very glad, indeed, that he had been so grievously misinformed about the personal attributes of one Hopalong Cassidy,—glad and thankful.
“Death cometh as a thief in the night,” the voice went on. “Think of the friends who have gone before; who were well one minute and gone the next! And it must come to all of us, to all of us, to me and to you—”
The man with the afflicted neck started rocking the bench.
“Something is coming to somebody purty soon,” murmured Hopalong. He began to sidle over towards his neighbor, his near hand doubled up into a huge knot of protuberant knuckles and white-streaked fingers; but as he was about to deliver his hint that he was greatly displeased at the antics of the bench, a sob came to his ears. Turning his head swiftly, he caught sight of the stranger's face, and sorrow was marked so strongly upon it that the sight made Hopalong gape. His hand opened slowly and he cautiously sidled back again, disgruntled, puzzled, and vexed at himself for having strayed into a game where he was so hopelessly at sea. He thought it all over carefully and then gave it up as being too deep for him to solve. But he determined one thing: He was not going to leave before the other man did, anyhow.