The marauders rode on two by two until the leaders, coming round a curve, caught sight of Morton and his right hand man. Then there was a surprised reining up on the one hand, and a sudden dashing charge on the other. At the first blow Goodwin felled his man, and the riderless horse ran backward through the ranks. The mob was taken by surprise, and before the ruffians could rally Morton uttered a cry to his men in the bushes, which brought an attack upon both flanks. The rowdies fought hard, but from the beginning the victory of the guard was assured by the advantage of ambush and surprise. The only question to be settled was that of capture, for Morton had ordered the arrest of every man that the guard could bring in. But so sturdy was the fight that only three were taken. One of the guard received a bad flesh wound from a pistol shot. Goodwin did not give up pursuing the retreating enemy until he saw them dash into the river opposite Jenkinsville. He then rode back, and as it was getting light threw himself upon one side of the great bunk in the preachers' tent, and slept until he was awakened by the horn blown in the pulpit for the eight o'clock preaching.
When Sheriff Burchard arrived on the ground that day he was evidently frightened at the earnestness of Morton's defence. Burchard was one of those politicians who would have endeavored to patch up a compromise with a typhoon. He was in a strait between his fear of the animosity of the mob and his anxiety to please the Methodists. Goodwin, taking advantage of this latter feeling, got himself appointed a deputy-sheriff, and, going before a magistrate, he secured the issuing of writs for the arrest of those whom he knew to be leaders. Then he summoned his guard as a posse, and, having thus put law on his side, he announced that if the ruffians came again the guard must follow him until they were entirely subdued.
Burchard took him aside, and warned him solemnly that such extreme measures would cost his life. Some of these men belonged to Harp's band, and he would not be safe anywhere if he made enemies of the gang. "Don't throw away your life," entreated Burchard.
"That's what life is for," said Morton. "If a man's life is too good to throw away in fighting the devil, it isn't worth having." Goodwin said this in a way that made Burchard ashamed of his own cowardice. But Kike, who stood by ready to depart, could not help thinking that if Patty were in place of Ann Eliza, Morton might think life good for something else than to be thrown away in a fight with rowdies.
As there was every sign of an approaching riot during the evening service, and as no man could manage the tempest so well as Brother Goodwin, he was appointed to preach. A young theologian of the present day would have drifted helpless on the waves of such a mob. When one has a congregation that listens because it ought to listen, one can afford to be prosy; but an audience that will only listen when it is compelled to listen is the best discipline in the world for an orator. It will teach him methods of homiletic arrangement which learned writers on Sacred Rhetoric have never dreamed of.
The disorder had already begun when Morton Goodwin's tall figure appeared in the stand. Frontier-men are very susceptible to physical effects, and there was a clarion-like sound to Morton's voice well calculated to impress them. Goodwin enjoyed battle; every power of his mind and body was at its best in the presence of a storm. He knew better than to take a text. He must surprise the mob into curiosity.
"There is a man standing back in the crowd there," he began, pointing his finger in a certain direction where there was much disorder, and pausing until everybody was still, "who reminds me of a funny story I once heard." At this point the turbulent sons of Belial, who loved nothing so much as a funny story, concluded to postpone their riot until they should have their laugh. Laugh they did, first at one funny story, and then at another—stories with no moral in particular, except the moral there is in a laugh. Brother Mellen, who sat behind Morton, and who had never more than half forgiven him for not coming to a bad end as the result of disturbing a meeting, was greatly shocked at Morton's levity in the pulpit, but Magruder, the presiding elder, was delighted. He laughed at each story, and laughed loud enough for Goodwin to hear and appreciate the senior's approval of his drollery. But somehow—the crowd did not know how,—at some time in his discourse—the Salt Fork rowdies did not observe when,—Morton managed to cease his drollery without detection, and to tell stories that brought tears instead of laughter. The mob was demoralized, and, by keeping their curiosity perpetually excited, Goodwin did not give them time to rally at all. Whenever an interruption was attempted, the preacher would turn the ridicule of the audience upon the interlocutor, and so gain the sympathy of the rough crowd who were habituated to laugh on the side of the winner in all rude tournaments of body or mind. Knowing perfectly well that he would have to fight before the night was over, Morton's mind was stimulated to its utmost. If only he could get the religious interest agoing, he might save some of these men instead of punishing them. His soul yearned over the people. His oratory at last swept out triumphant over everything; there was weeping and sobbing; some fell in uttering cries of anguish; others ran away in terror. Even Burchard shivered with emotion when Morton described how, step by step, a young man was led from bad to worse, and then recited his own experience. At last there was the utmost excitement. As soon as this hurricane of feeling had reached the point of confusion, the rioters broke the spell of Morton's speech and began their disturbance. Goodwin immediately invited the penitents into the enclosed pen-like place called the altar, and the whole space was filled with kneeling mourners, whose cries and groans made the woods resound. But at the same moment the rioters increased their noisy demonstrations, and Morton, finding Burchard inefficient to quell them, descended from the pulpit and took command of his camp-meeting police.
Perhaps the mob would not have secured headway enough to have necessitated the severest measures if it had not been for Mr. Mellen. As soon as he detected the rising storm he felt impelled to try the effect of his stentorian voice in quelling it. He did not ask permission of the presiding elder, as he was in duty bound to do, but as soon as there was a pause in the singing he began to exhort. His style was violently aggressive, and only served to provoke the mob. He began with the true old Homeric epithets of early Methodism, exploding them like bomb-shells. "You are hair-hung and breeze-shaken over hell," he cried.
"You don't say!" responded one of the rioters, to the infinite amusement of the rest.