meaning. "You'd have to cl'ar yourself or take another an' wuss lickin'.
Go up to the United States where you b'long. You aint wanted here."

"You don't understand me. If the gentleman of whom you spoke should
attempt any violence, would I submit to it without trying to defend
myself? I don't think I should. I have a double gun with fifteen
buckshot in each barrel, and you may say you have been assured by me
that I will shoot the first man who puts a hostile foot on my gallery
[porch]. Now go."

"Then you'll shoot--"

"Go!" interrupted the minister; and Bud ought to have been warned by the
flash in his eye that he was thoroughly in earnest.

"The best men in town say--"

"Will you go peaceably," said the minister, pointing toward the gate,
"or shall I be obliged to pick you up and throw you off my grounds?"

He took a single step forward as he spoke, and in an instant Bud Goble
jumped back and swung his rifle from his shoulder; but before he could
think twice his antagonist, whose agility equaled his strength, was upon
him, the weapon was twisted from his grasp, and Bud buried his face in
the soft earth of a flower-bed. But the minister was not yet done with
him. Holding the rifle in one hand he seized Bud by the neck with the
other, jerked him to his feet, and walked him out of the gate and into
the road at double time. Then he fired the rifle into the air and leaned
the weapon against the fence.

"I think this ends our interview, neighbor Goble," said he, without the
least sign of anger or excitement, "and I will bid you good-day. The
next time you visit me come in a proper frame of mind, and I will
receive you accordingly; but please do not bring me any more threatening
messages."

"This beats me," soliloquized Goble, who, after seeing the minister
disappear around the corner of the house, felt of the back of his neck
to make sure that the strong fingers which grasped it a moment before
had not left any holes there. "Who'd a thought that a preacher could a
had sich an amazin' grip? I wasn't no more'n a babby in his hands. Now
what's to be done? Be I goin' to put up with sich an insult? I guess I'd
best set down yer an' think about it."

Bud Goble was a thoroughly subdued man now. The events of the morning
had satisfied him that open warfare was not his best hold, and that if
he hoped to accomplish anything and retain the confidence of the
committee, he must make a decided change in his tactics. He must wor