“Run Tolley out,” said Smithy, who had now enthusiastically taken sides with the church people, “and you needn’t worry about that shack.”
“Maybe he would sell,” Hurley suggested.
“You try to buy it,” and Judson grinned. “His eye teeth has done been cut a far time back. Tolley ain’t that kind of a fool. He is wise to the idea that we’d like to buy that place. If you paved the shack floor with gold eagles Tolley wouldn’t bite.”
“He’d like to bust up the church and run the parson out, if you ask me,” was the comment of another bystander. “And he’s got a sharp side-pardner now, boys. I hear tell Dick the Devil is a-hintin’ that things will go different in Canyon Pass, now that he’s come back.”
“How’s that?” asked Hurley quickly, his eyes sparkling as they always did when his temper was ruffled. “What’s Dick got to say about it?”
“He don’t favor no parson. He says so.”
“Looks to me,” drawled Judson, “that it’s comin’ close to a show-down. Either we folks that want a church and decency has got to cave in, or we got to fight.”
“The right kind of fighting, I hope,” said Hunt quickly. “We must hold our own without open quarreling.”
“Well, it won’t be peaceful when we try to hold onto Tolley’s shack,” growled Jib Collins.
“Look yere,” queried a voice from the dark end of the store, “what have you shorthorns been doin’ all this time you’ve had a parson? Why ain’t ye built him a church?”