The Reverend Mr. Fowler leaned over the desk. "Charleton Falkner, aren't
you man enough to admit that you folks here in Lost Chief lead a wicked
life?"

"How do you mean, wicked?" demanded Charleton.

"I mean that you steal cattle, that you shoot to kill, that there is
indecency among your children, that your young girls go unguarded and
that your young men are no better than wild horses. I mean that your
little girls drink whiskey. And I defy you to show me two mothers in
the valley who have taught their children to pray and to walk with God."

"Aw!" sniffed Oscar Jefferson, "if that's what you've come a hundred
miles to tell us, you'd better quit! That may do for foreigners and city
slums, but it won't go down with the Lost Chief cowman. We're Americans,
here."

"Americans!" cried Mr. Fowler. "How much does that mean?"

Jefferson rose to his full six feet. "By God, I'll tell you what it
means! It means our ancestors conquered the Indians, in New England, that
we fought the British in the Revolution and the rebels in the Civil War
and the hombres in the Spanish-American War. It means that fifty years
ago the father or the grandfather of every man in this room came out here
and fought the Indians and the wolves and the Mormons--"

Charleton Falkner interrupted with his twisted smile that showed even,
tobacco stained teeth. "Jeff, this ain't the Fourth of July celebration,
you know!"