Frank was a cattle-man between Sundays.
"Along about this time an incident come off that I couldn't get much light on.

A stranger come to town, an' was seen with the preacher.

This stranger was a big man with an eye like blue ice, an' a beard of gold.
He had money, an' he 'peered a man of mystery, an' the town went to buzzin' when he disappeared about the same time as a young woman known to be mightily interested in the new preacher's religion.

Then, presently, along comes a man from somewheres in Illinois, en' he up an' spots this preacher as a famous Mormon proselyter.

That riled Frank Erne as nothin' ever before, an' from rivals they come to be bitter enemies.
An' it ended in Frank goin' to the meetin'-house where Milly was listenin', en' before her en' everybody else he called that preacher--called him, well, almost as hard as Venters called Tull here sometime back.