The Coolidge examiner., 1931-09-11
CHAPTER IV-Continued.

lney went 10 WOfk early Sun
day. So as not to mar the num-
bers they covered the faro and
roulette tables with twenty-five
foot boards. Such OF the prospec-
tive congregation as came early
would use these for seats. There
were too. a few rude benches on
which the players usually sat. The
remainder must stand. The meet
ing was 10 be from eleven to twelve.
AS early as nine o'clock they be-
gan TO arrive. They came from
lonely cabins, dugouts, tents. Ok
carts. wagons, buggies, horsemen,
mule teams. They we're starving
for company. 1t wasn't religion
they sought; it was the stimulation
that comes of meeting their kind
in the mass. They brought picnic
baskets and boxes, prepared for a
holiday.
The town seemed alive with blan-
keted Indians. They squatted in
the shade of the wooden shacks.
They walked in from their nearby
reservations, or rode their NANCY
horses, or brought in their entire
families-squaw, papoose, two or
three children Of assorted sizes,
dogs
Sabra, seeing them, told herself
sternly that she must remember to
have a Christian spirit, and they
were all Gods children; that these
red men had been converted. She
didn't believe a word of it.
Rangers, storekeepers, settlers.
Lean squatters with their bony
wives and their bare-legged, rickety
children. as untamed as little
wolves.
Sabra superintended the toilettes
of her men folk from Yancey to
Isaiah.
Yancey chided her, laughing, My
good woman, do you realize that
this is no way to titivate for the
work of delivering the Word of
God? Sackcloth and ashes is,
believe, the prescribed costume"
He poured and drank down three
fingers of whisky, the third since
breakfast.
Gin cavorted excitedly in MS
best suit, with the bright plaid silk
tie and the buttoned shoes, tasseled
at the top. The boy. Sabra thought
as she dressed him, grew more and
more like Yancey, except that he
seemed to lack his fathers driving
force, his ebullience.
Yancey's sure dramatic instinct
bade him delay until he could make
an effective entrance. A dozen
times Sabra called to him, as he sat
in the front office busy with paper
and pencil. This was, she decided.
his sole preparation for the sermon
he would be bound to deliver with.
in the next hour. Later she found
in the pocket of his sweeping
Prince Albert the piece of paper on
which he had made notes. One
word he had written on it, and then
disguised it with meaningless
markS-but not quite. Sabra study
ing the paper after the events of
the morning, made out the word
"YountiS."
AT last he was ready. Sabra
had put on, not her second-best
black grosgrain, but her best, and
the hat with the plumes. She and
Yancey stepped sedately down the
street, with Gins warm wriggling
little fingers in her own clasp.
Sohro roc q clir1Iv aIonoot l;&4I.
figure in her modish black; Yancey,
as always, a dashing one.
They went on their way. 1t oc-
/, CURED neither to Sabra nor to Yam
cey that there was anything bizarre
or even unusual in their thus pro-
ceeding, three well-dressed and
reasonably conventional figures, to-
ward a gambling tent and saloon
which. packed to suffocation with
the worst and best that q from
tier town has to offer, was for one
short hour to become a House of
God.
"Are you nervous, Yancey dear?"
I'd fifty times rather plead with a
jury of Texas Panhandle cattlemen
for the life of a professional horse
thief than stand up to preach be-
fore this gang Of" He broke off
abruptly. whats everybody laugh
ing at and pointing to?" Certainly
passers-by were acting strangely.
Instinetively Sabra and Yancey
turned to look behind them. Down
the street, perhaps fifty PAGES be-
hind them, came Isaiah. He was