“Yes,” replied the stranger, with a grin, “an’ I also left on hossback.”
“Well, ya satisfied now?” grunted Badger-face to me.
Livin’ out doors the way I had, I naturally had a big respect for brands. It’s mighty comfortin’ to feel that ya can turn your stuff loose an’ know that it’s not likely to be bothered; so I was up something of a stump about this new doctrine. “Where’d you get your commission from to pick up a hoss whenever you feel like it?” sez I to the stranger.
He had a little leather sack hangin’ from his saddle horn, an’ he reached into it an’ fished out a small book with a soft leather cover. The feller ’at was holdin’ his hoss eyed him mighty close for fear it was some sort of a gun; but the stranger ran over the leaves with his fingers as ready as a man would step into the home corral an’ rope his favorite ridin’ pony.
“Here’s my commission,” sez he, as self-satisfied as though he was holdin’ a government document; an’ then he read aloud with that deep, mellow voice o’ his, the story of the time the Lord was minded to let himself out a little an’ came into Jerusalem in state. He read it all, an’ then he paused, looked about, holdin’ each man’s eyes with his own for a second, an’ then he read once more the part where the Lord had sent in a couple of his hands after the colt that no man had ever backed before—an’ then he closed the book, patted it gentle an’ shoved it back into the leather bag. I looked around on the posse, an’ most of ’em was rubbin’ their chins, an’ studyin’. I’ve noticed that while the earth is purty well cluttered up with pale-blooded an’ partially ossified Christians, the’s mighty few out an’ out atheists among ’em.
“That don’t go,” sez Badger-face, after he’d taken time to pump up his nerve a little.
No one said anything for a space, an’ then the stranger put a little edge on his voice, but spoke in a lower tone than before: “That does go,” he said. “No matter what else in life may be questioned, no matter how hard and fast a title may stick, it must crumble to dust when one comes and says, ‘The Lord hath need of this.’ It may be your life or it may be your property or it may be the one being you love most in all the world; but when the Lord hath need, your own needs must fall away.
“Now, boys, I love the West, I glory in the fact that I can lay something down and go on about my business an’ come back a month later and find it just where I left it; and if I was takin’ these hosses to sell or trade or use for my own selfish ends, why, I wouldn’t have a word to say again’ your stringin’ me up. I brought my own hoss into this country and when it gave out I didn’t have time to barter an’ trade for another one; so I just caught one, and when it grew weary, I turned it adrift. I don’t claim the hosses I ride; I don’t want to own them; I simply borrow them for a while because my Lord hath need of them. I treat them well, and when they weary, send ’em back to their own range with a pat, and pick up another. The next fellow who rides that hoss will find it a little less trouble than if I hadn’t used it, and there’s no harm done at all. I’m working with you, I’m going to make your own work easier out here by raisin’ the respect for brands, not by makin’ property rights any looser; and you are goin’ to work with me—whether you want to or not. Now then, how much longer are you goin’ to keep this fool noose about my neck?”
That posse wasn’t easy minded, not by a jugful. This stranger was speakin’ as though he had power an’ authority an’ public opinion all on his side, and they felt consid’able like the tenderfoot who’d roped the buffalo—they was willin’ to quit any time he was.
The Cross brand boys were purty sullen an’ moody; but four o’ the posse belonged to another outfit, an’ they couldn’t stand the strain. One of ’em, a grizzled old codger with one lamp missin’, lifted the noose from the prisoner’s neck, an’ sez most respectful: “Parson, I’m an old man. I ain’t heard a sermon for forty years, an’ I’d be right obliged to ya if you’d make us one.”