"If it was war," I told him, "I'd first send you home to yo' mother. No, kid, this is going to be smooth peace, but we're going to knock Grave City cold with astonishment. Get plenty ammunition, feed yo' horse, and wait my gathering howl for a signal."
It was high noon when Captain McCalmont came straying down into Main Street on a "painted" horse. At Ryan's livery stable he allowed he was an unworthy minister, wanting water and feed for the piebald pony. At the Delmonico pie foundry he let out that he craved for sausages, mashed potatoes, and green tea. Then he had a basin of bread-and-milk, while he told the dish-slinger a few solemn truths. Apple-pie, says he, was a delusion; eating tobacco was a snare; intoxicating drink was only vanity on the lips, but raging wild-cats to the inward parts. The proper doctrine, says he, is to eschew all evil, but the wicked man leaves out that saving syllable es, and chews evil all the time.
Then he allowed that a toothpick would do him no harm, paid for his meal, and strayed out across the street to where I stood dealing peace among the cowboys.
"Little sinners," says he, "I perceive that you have fallen into evil company. This Chalkeye man is a pernicious influence, which would corrupt the morals of a grizzly bear. Flee from this Chalkeye person."
They wanted to take him into the nearest saloon and enjoy him for the rest of the day.
"Kin you dance?" says one of the boys, aiming a gun at his toes. "Whirl right in and dance!"
McCalmont walked right at him, eye to eye, and that same cowboy went as white as death.
"Shall I abate you," says the preacher, "in the midst of yo' sins? You done wrong—you done ate tobacco and chocolate candy mixed, then poured on hot cawfee, rye whisky, and an ice-cream soda; and now yo're white as a corpse with mixed sins. Go take a pill, my son, and repent before yo're sick."
The boys watched that preacher smiling, and went tame as kittens. The tone of his voice just froze them up, his smile scraped their young bones, his eyes looked death.
"Come, Chalkeye," says he, and led me off into the "Spur" saloon. There he threw a glance to Cranky Joe, the bar-keep, and put his finger on Mutiny Robertson, a smuggler who sat playing poker. Cranky put someone in charge of the bar, Mutiny passed his game to a friend of his, and both of them followed meek as sheep, while the preacher led on into the backyard. From there we worked round the back street to Ryan's stable, McCalmont keeping up his baby-talk for the sake of passing strangers.