E. R. Punshon

“ Young feller, you had better pack your traps and quit. There's no spellbinder ever born the boys here will listen to if they've got to fight me after."
"I attend the meetings," Peter urged, "and I don't fight you and won't. So why should any one else?"
"Because if they didn't, I would wipe the earth with them," answered Snubby simply; "but as for you, you don't count. Why, I reckon you never fought a man in your life."
"Never, and never will," answered Peter earnestly. "I am a man of peace." ”

“ BY THIS time a tittle group of men had gathered near. They had seen—and heard—Snubby laugh; they had seen Peter remove his coat, and that was generally the signal that a fight was beginning. Now a fight—even a dog-fight—was the one form of entertainment in that camp which was universally popular, and of late, since Snubby had established such undisputed supremacy, they had grown regrettably rare. Therefore, with a lingering hope, men came lounging along, even though they felt that a fight between Snubby Brown and the new preacher would be a piece of quite incredible good fortune. ”

“ Two of the onlookers picked him up and carried him to his bunk, and later on the camp boss came to speak to Snubby. "Quit it, Snubby; why can't you?" he urged. "What's the fun of hammering a helpless innocent like him?"
"It ain't no fun at all," agreed Snubby; "but when a feller comes for me, ain't I a right to lay him out?"
To this the camp boss had no reply, and indeed Snubby's position seemed impregnable by every law and custom of the camp. ”

“ Snubby felt that the tide of popular feeling was turning against him and he scowled ferociously around.
"Any feller got anything to say?" he demanded. "If any feller has, he only wants to open his mouth just once. Nope? Now, young feller, I'll fix you up all right as soon as you want, and then any one else what wants."
After all, it was, the onlookers generally agreed, a most uninteresting and disappointing fight. Indeed, it was hardly a fight at all. It was merely Snubby exercising himself on a punching-ball. ”

“ The fight—if fight it can be called—followed its usual course. Peter never got in a blow; invariably his long arms were still whirling wildly round his head while Snubby's straight punches were getting in their work. A dozen times or more did Peter go down before those devastating blows, till at last he lay so still after one that had been particularly vicious that for a moment or two the onlookers feared he had been killed. ”

“ He summoned help; the two combatants were removed to their reflective bunks, and the camp boss and the old hewer who had been with him were both kept busy the rest of the evening recounting what they had seen at the end of that great fight it was so sad to think no living creature had really witnessed, while a constant succession of visitors passed before the bunk where Snubby Brown lay and observed with awe and wonder the many plain signs and tokens Peter had managed to inflict on that cast-iron visage. ”

“ But Preacher said as he had me scared cold, so what can I do but whip him?"
"Boys," said Peter, in his turn, "I want you to know this is none of my seeking. But you know how our brother here has put a hoodoo on my meetings by saying any man who comes to than has got to fight him afterward; and if that's so, it's only a square deal that he should whip the preacher first and last and all the time—isn't that so?" ”

“ They had come to a fight; they found a gospel meeting instead, and Peter, walking up and down inside that roped-in enclosure where the fight was to have been held, swinging in vigorous exhortation and denunciation those long arms of his his hearers had hoped to see punching the attentive Snubby's head, took the fullest advantage of the opportunity that had come his way.
"They shall hear the truth about themselves to-day," he thought to himself grimly, "if they never do again." ”

“ Around stood the mass of the onlookers, twenty and thirty deep in places, but all so carefully arranged on the slope of the ground that practically every man had a good view of the open space in the center where the great fight was to be fought.
Patiently the crowd waited. On the whole, the betting, of which there was a good deal, favored Snubby; but some backed Peter on the general grounds that, when a preacher took to fighting, wildcats no longer counted. ”

“ Peter agreed.
"Good!" said Snubby, beginning to take off his coat. "In two minutes your own mother won't know you from a pan of dough."
But Peter smiled and shook his head.
"Not that kind of fighting," he said. "My weapons are not fists, and I am here to preach peace."
"Aw, quit it!" called out suddenly the camp boss, who had come up to see what the trouble was. "Let him alone, Snubby; he ain't no fighter."
"Sure thing, he ain't," growled Snubby, and turned and walked away.
"The meeting will begin," Peter called after him, "in one hour. I shall look out for you, brother." ”

“ The head cook visibly softened.
"It was a good pie," he admitted simply, and added, "Some of the boys call mine the 'better-than-ma-made pies.'"
"I don't wonder," said the guileful Peter. "They are real good, and that's a fact." ”

“ He appeared to be a very young man, very tall, very thin, with large black eyes and long arms and legs that seemed to straggle aimlessly all around, as if half inclined to wander off somewhere on their own account. ”

“ The postponement of the fight for a week was therefore agreed on and the news of this decision was promptly communicated to the two principals.
"You'll be able to settle things once and for all," the camp boss told them. "If Snubby wins, Preacher'll have to promise never to interfere no more with Snubby, what only wants to live the peaceful life, or else Preacher must quit camp for good, and if he don't, then he'll be rid out of camp on a rail and treated rough if he ever comes back. ”

“ It's only as they know very well that Snubby can whip the best man among them with one hand tied behind his back."
"But he can't—couldn't fight the whole camp!" cried Peter.
"For why not?" asked the head cook.
PETER went away then, furnished with much food for thought. Evidently none of the men was likely to attend his meetings when such attendance meant a fight afterward with Snubby Brown, who, it seemed, could with one hand tied behind him lick the best man among them. ”

“ Now, that last feller—he brought it on himself."
The two hewers nodded gravely; for indeed to interfere just at the exact moment when a jack-pot is opened is undoubtedly to ask for trouble.
"Tact is all that's wanted, tact on all sides," declared a hewer—he of the tolerant mind—"and on no account, Snubby—no more packing-cases. It gets the camp a bad name back East when folk read pieces like that in the papers."
Snubby again assured them that the new preacher had nothing to fear from him and the deputation withdrew, on the whole fairly well satisfied. ”