CHAPTER XXVI.
ENGAGEMENT.
You do not like Morton in his vacillating state of mind as he rides toward Salt Fork, weighing considerations of right and wrong, of duty and disinclination, in the balance. He is not an epic hero, for epic heroes act straightforwardly, they either know by intuition just what is right, or they are like Milton's Satan, unencumbered with a sense of duty. But Morton was neither infallible nor a devil. A man of sensitive conscience cannot, even by accident, break a woman's heart without compunction.
When Goodwin approached Salt Fork he was met by Burchard, now sheriff of the county, and warned that he would be attacked. Burchard begged him to turn back. Morton might have scoffed at the cowardice and time-serving of the sheriff, if he had not been under such obligations to him, and had not been touched by this new evidence of his friendship. But Goodwin had never turned back from peril in his life.
"I have a right to preach at Salt Fork, Burchard," he said, "and I will do it or die."
Even in the struggle at Salt Fork Morton could not get rid of his love affair. He was touched to find lying on the desk in the school-house a little unsigned billet in Ann Eliza's handwriting, uttering a warning similar to that just given by Burchard.
It was with some tremor that he looked round, in the dim light of two candles, upon the turbulent faces between him and the door. His prayer and singing were a little faint. But when once he began to preach, his combative courage returned, and his ringing voice rose above all the shuffling sounds of disorder. The interruptions, however, soon became so distinct that he dared not any longer ignore them. Then he paused in his discourse and looked at the rioters steadily.
"You think you will scare me. It is my business to rebuke sin. I tell you that you are a set of ungodly ruffians and law breakers. I tell your neighbors here that they are miserable cowards. They let lawless men trample on them. I say, shame on them! They ought to organize and arrest you if it cost their lives."
Here a click was heard as of some one cocking a horse-pistol. Morton turned pale; but something in his warm, Irish blood impelled him to proceed. "I called you ruffians awhile ago," he said, huskily. "Now I tell you that you are cut-throats. If you kill me here to-night, I will show your neighbors that it is better to die like a man than to live like a coward. The law will yet be put in force whether you kill me or not. There are some of you that would belong to Micajah Harp's gang of robbers if you dared. But you are afraid; and so you only give information and help to those who are no worse, only a little braver than you are."
