“Brother, are you evading your duty? Are you procrastinating in the face of Satan? If you are the man I hope you are, you will march now, with the decent citizens of Corkscrew at your heels, to wipe from the face of our town the sin that blackens it!”
So that was it. I was to lead one of these vice-crusading mobs. I wondered how many of these crusaders would be standing behind me if one of the devil’s representatives took a shot at me. The minister maybe—his thin face was grimly pugnacious. But I couldn’t imagine what good he’d be in a row. The others would scatter at the first sign of trouble.
I stopped playing politics and said my say.
“I’m glad to have your support,” I said, “but there isn’t going to be any wholesale raiding—not for a while, anyway. Later, I’ll try to get around to the bootleggers and gamblers and similar small fry, though I’m not foolish enough to think I can put them all out of business. Just now, so long as they don’t cut up too rough, I don’t expect to bother them. I haven’t the time.
“This list you’ve given me—I’ll do what I think ought to be done after I’ve examined it, but I’m not going to worry a lot over a batch of petty misdemeanors that happened a year ago. I’m starting from scratch. What happens from now on is what interests me. See you later.”
And I left.
The cowboys’ car was standing in front of the store when I came out.
“I’ve been meeting the better element,” I explained as I found a place in it between Milk River and Buck Small.
Milk River’s brown face wrinkled around his eyes.
“Then you know what kind of riffraff we are,” he said.