United States -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Mary nodded. "You get the food together and there are three or four of
us women who would be glad to cook it for you."
"You are a real friend, Mother!" exclaimed Douglas. "I believe you've
solved my problem!"
And so, in spite of Mr. Fowler's protest, a venison dinner was announced
for Sunday and received by the Valley in a spirit of hilarious
enthusiasm. The preacher refused to deliver the sermon while the meal
was in progress, but it was such a gustatory success that at its close,
the guests sat in complete docility through a sermon on future
punishment. It was a good sermon, quite as modern in most aspects as
Lost Chief. Douglas had seen to that. Mr. Fowler had reached the closing
sentence when a bull bellowed outside and the door opened disclosing
Elijah Nelson, with his horse close behind him. The preacher paused.
"Excuse me!" exclaimed Nelson. "I thought this was just a dinner!"
He was a big man, perhaps fifty years of age, with a smooth-shaven
ruddy face. He wore a sheepskin vest over his corduroy coat, and one of
the small boys bleated. Grandma Brown promptly smacked him on the mouth.
"Will you come in and eat?" asked Fowler.
"No, thank you," replied the Mormon; adding with a determined thrust of
his lower jaw, "I want Scott Parsons to come out. I won't disturb the
rest of you."
"What do you want of me?" demanded Scott from his place between Judith
and Inez.
"Come outside and I'll tell you."
Scott grunted derisively. "It sure-gawd has got to be something more
than that to win me out of this position. I'm the envy of Lost Chief,
old sheep-man!"
There was a general laugh.
"Go on out and see what he wants, Scott," said Peter.
Scott sighed and detached himself. The congregation waited a moment;
then curiosity had its own way and the chapel emptied itself into the
yard. Several Mormons were sitting their horses before the line of
quivering aspens that bound the little clearing. A big red bull was tied
to the corral fence. Elijah Nelson remained on the doorstep.
"Well," he began, "since you are all out here, I'll say to all of you
what I rode down here to say to Scott Parsons, he and anybody that may
be helping him are hereby served notice that they've got to keep out of
Mormon Valley. We are decent, God-fearing Americans, and we are not
going to stand being robbed any more."
"How do you mean, being robbed?" asked Peter Knight.
"Well, I brought this along as a sample," replied Elijah. "Some five
years or so ago, I had some cattle grazing on Lost Chief and somebody
ran off a dozen head, this bull among the lot. Anybody that can't do a
better job of rebranding than this, ought to try another line of
business."
There was an interested craning of necks toward the huge brand offered
in evidence; then every one looked at Scott. Scott said nothing, and
Elijah went on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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