The minister saw. He saw the deep, muddy water-hole. He saw nothing more.
"Folks are all too ready to believe them there things you was gettin' off without havin' 'em preached to justify 'em in their evil ways. We gotta think of those poor ignorant brothers of ours that might listen to you. See? That's the altruism of it!"
"What do you want me to do?" The wretched man's tone was not merely humble--it was abject. His grand Prince Albert coat was torn in three places; one tail hung down dejectedly over his hip; one sleeve was ripped half-way out. His collar was unbuttoned and the ends rode up hilariously over his cheeks. His necktie was gone. His sleek hair stuck out in damp wisps about his frightened eyes, and his hat had been "stove in" and jammed down as far as it would go until his ample ears stuck out like sails at half-mast. His feet were imbedded in the heavy mud on the margin of the water-hole, and his fine silk socks, which had showed at one time above the erstwhile neat tyings, were torn and covered with mud.
"Well, in the first place," said Jasper Kemp, with a slow wink around at the company, "that little matter about hell needs adjustin'. Hell ain't no superstition. I ain't dictatin' what kind of a hell there is; you can make it fire or water or anything else you like, but there is a hell, an' you believe in it. D'ye understand? We'd just like to have you make that statement publicly right here an' now."
"But how can I say what I don't believe?" whined West, almost ready to cry. He had come proudly through a trial by Presbytery on these very same points, and had posed as being a man who had the courage of his convictions. He could not thus easily surrender his pride of original thought and broad-mindedness. He had received congratulations from a number of noble martyrs who had left their chosen church for just such reasons, congratulating him on his brave stand. It had been the first notice from big men he had ever been able to attract to himself, and it had gone to his head like wine. Give that up for a few miserable cowboys! It might get into the papers and go back East. He must think of his reputation.
"That's just where the dynamics of the thing comes in, brother," said Jasper Kemp, patronizingly. "We're here to make you believe in a hell. We're the force that will bring you back into the right way of thinkin' again. Are you ready, boys?"