And I 'ain't yet finished with the gang that thought they was
smart on New-Year's eve--just chew that up with your cud of tobacker!"
With half a dozen ruffians at his back--the scum of prisons,
gambling-dens, and low resorts--he summed up a menace not to be
estimated lightly. Many citizens feared to incur his wrath; many were
weak, and therefore as likely to gather to his side as not, under the
pressure he could put upon them.
The camp was suddenly ripe for a struggle. Right and decency, or
lawlessness and violence would speedily conquer. There could be no
half-way measures. If Webber and his following had been persuaded
before that Parson Stowe should have a place in the town, they were
grimly determined on the project now.
The blacksmith it was who strung up once again a bar of steel before
his shop and rang it with his hammer.
There were forty men who answered to the summons. And when they had
finished the council of war within the shop, the work of an upward lift
had been accomplished. A supplement was added to the work of signing a
short petition requesting Parson Stowe to come among them, and this
latter took the form of a mandate addressed to the gambler and his
backing of outlaws, thieves, and roughs.
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