It was not a pleasant recollection of our friends that, since their departure from New Constantinople, the force left behind would be hardly a match for this desperate gang of marauders, who no doubt were as eager for trouble as they professed to be.
“Why not make a settlement of your own?” was the conciliating question of Parson Brush; “there’s plenty of room in this country.”
“That would be too peaceable like; it don’t suit us; we’re looking for trouble.”
“And you’ll find it powerful quick,” said Wade Ruggles, “if you try to shove that gang of yours into New Constantinople.”
“That’s music in our ears; that’s what we’re hungry for; we’re ready to start an opposition hotel to the Heavenly Bower, too; we’ve got the stock to furnish it.”
“Wade,” said the parson, “keep your temper; we can’t afford to quarrel with these men.”
“It wouldn’t take much for me to shoot that chap off his mule as he sets there.”
“Leave matters to the captain; it looks as if we shall have a fight, but it is best to keep cool.”
The observant trio had noticed an additional cause for uneasiness. More than one of the party were surveying the three horses and mule with admiring eyes. Some of them spoke to one another in low tones, and there could be no doubt they looked with envy upon the animals, which, tiring of their confinement in the ravine, had come forth as if with the purpose of passing under review, on their way to crop the grass from which they had been driven.