Don't think the rest of us was agin the parson, though. We wasn't. Fact it, we kinda liked him from the jump. We liked his riggin', we liked the way he grabbed you' paw, and he was no quitter when it come to a hoss. _Say!_ but he could ride! One day when he racked into the post-office, his spur-chains a-rattlin' like a puncher's, and a quirt in his fist, one of the Bar Y boys rounded him up agin the _meanest, low_-down buckin' proposition that ever wore the hide of a bronc. But the parson was game from his hay to his hoofs. He clumb into the saddle and stayed there, and went a-hikin' off acrosst the prairie, independent as a pig on ice, just like he was a-straddlin' some ole crow-bait! So, when Sunday night come, and he preached in the school-house, he had quite a bunch of punchers corralled there to hear him. And I was one of 'em. (But, a-course, that first time, I didn't have no idear it was a-goin' to mean a turrible lot to me, that goin' to church.) Wal, I'm blamed if the parson wasn't wearin' the same outfit as he did week days. We liked that. And he didn't open up by tellin' us that we was all branded and ear-marked a' ready by the Ole Long-horn Gent. No, ma'am. He didn't _mention_ everlastin' fire. And he didn't ramp and pitch and claw his hair. Fact is, he didn't hell-toot! A-course, that spoiled the fun fer us. But he talked so straight, and kinda easy and honest, that he got us a-listenin' to what he _said_. Cain't say we was stuck on his text, though. It run like this, that a smart man sees when a row's a-comin' and makes fer the tall cat-tails till the wind dies down. And he went on to say that a man oughta be humble, and that if a feller gives you a lick on the jaw, why, you oughta let him give you another to grow on. Think o' that! It may be O. K. fer preachers, and fer women that ain't strong enough t' lam back. But fer me, _nixey_. But that hand-out didn't give the parson no black eye with _us_. _We_ knowed it was his duty t' talk that-a-way. And two 'r three of the boys got t' proposin' him fer the polo team real serious--pervided, a-course, that he'd stand fer a little cussin' when the 'casion _re_quired. It was a cinch that he'd draw like wet rawhide. Wal, the long and short of it is, he did. And Sunday nights, the Dutchman lost money. He begun t' josh the boys about gittin' churchy. It didn't do no good,--the boys didn't give a whoop fer his gass, and they liked the parson. All Dutchy could do was to sic his purp on to chawin' spots offen that keerige dawg. But pretty soon he got plumb tired of just dawg-fightin'. He _pre_pared to turn hisself loose. And he advertised a free supper fer the very next Sunday night. When Sunday night come, they say he had a reg'lar Harvey layout. You buy a drink, and you git a stuffed pickle, 'r a patty de grass, 'r a wedge of pie druv into you' face.