It was still too early for the cabarets and gambling places to be open, and even the saloon bars were somnolent save for the flies buzzing about them or drunkenly crawling in the spilled beer. The pivotal point of the town’s rendezvous and gossip on Sunday afternoon was the Three Star Grocery. In front of that old Bill Judson held forth between his exertions of waiting on such customers as might claim his attention. “Dad burn it!” ejaculated Judson. “I bet Tom Hicks has crawled into his hole and pulled the hole in after him. I should want to if I was him. And you take it from me, boys, a parson that can do that to a bad actor like Tom Hicks will make Canyon Pass sit up and take notice before he’s through.” “It showed sand, I allow,” agreed one of his hearers judiciously. “But it’s r’iled Boss Tolley all up and he swears the parson sha’n’t stay.” “You don’t say!” drawled Judson sarcastically. “And who ever elected Tolley to be boss of the Pass? If for no other reason, I’m strong for this yere Reverend Hunt.” “As a man—a reg’lar he-man—I’m for him, too,” agreed another. “But I’m thinkin’ we can get along yere at Canyon Pass without much psalm-singing and preaching.” “Yeppy. You’re right,” declared a third of Judson’s hearers. “Let alone that you’re all wrong,” put in Judson again with energy, “let’s look at the thing in a practical way, as the feller said. If a man come in yere and opened a shoe shop or a candy pop or wanted to sell shoestrings, we’d give him the glad hand, wouldn’t we? ‘Live and let live,’ has always been the motto of Canyon Pass, ain’t it?” “What’s that got to do with it, Bill?” “Why, you big gump! Ain’t this parson got something to peddle? His stock in trade is religion, and he’s got just as much right to show goods and try to drum up trade as the next one, ain’t he? He’s entitled to a fair deal. And Boss Tolley, Tom Hicks, and them other highbinders can sulk in their dens and suck their paws. I ain’t never gone ironed since I opened this shack, nigh thirty years ago. But I’ll sling a gun on my hip and act as bodyguard if it’s necessary for any feller that ain’t getting a fair deal in this town. That’s gospel!” “I never knowed ye was so all-fired religious, Bill,” complained one of his surprised hearers. “Religious!” retorted the storekeeper. “It ain’t that I’m religious—not so’s you’d notice it. But I got a sense of fair play,—dad burn it! Here comes the parson now, boys.” Hunt and Joe Hurley came out of the Wild Rose Hotel. The minister had not donned his clerical garments. He was dressed as he had been the day before when he arrived on the stagecoach, except for the hat he wore. That flopping-brimmed headgear which he had taken from Tom Hicks crowned the parson’s brush of crisp, dark hair.