Chapter 6

Sheriff took the proffered hand as if mechanically, and turned to the bar with “Whisky--straight.” Sheriff Johnson was a man of medium height, sturdily built. A broad forehead, and clear, grey-blue eyes that met everything fairly, testified in his favour. The nose, however, was fleshy and snub. The mouth was not to be seen, nor its shape guessed at, so thickly did the brown moustache and beard grow; but the short beard seemed rather to exaggerate than conceal an extravagant outjutting of the lower jaw, that gave a peculiar expression of energy and determination to the face. His manner was unobtrusively quiet and deliberate.

It was an unusual occurrence for Johnson to come at night to the bar-lounge, which was beginning to fall into disrepute among the puritanical or middle-class section of the community. No one, however, seemed to pay any further attention to him or to remark the unusual cordiality of Martin's greeting. A quarter of an hour elapsed before anything of note occurred. Then, an elderly man whom I did not know, a farmer, by his dress, drew a copy of the “Kiota Tribune” from his pocket, and, stretching it towards Johnson, asked with a very marked Yankee twang:

“Sheriff, hev yeou read this 'Tribune'?”

Wheeling half round towards his questioner, the Sheriff replied:

“Yes, sir, I hev.” A pause ensued, which was made significant to me by the fact that the bar-keeper suspended his hand and did not pour out the whisky he had just been asked to supply--a pause during which the two faced each other; it was broken by the farmer saying:

“Ez yeou wer out of town to-day, I allowed yeou might hev missed seein' it. I reckoned yeou'd come straight hyar before yeou went to hum.”

“No, Crosskey,” rejoined the Sheriff, with slow emphasis; “I went home first and came on hyar to see the boys.”

“Wall,” said Mr. Crosskey, as it seemed to me, half apologetically, “knowin' yeou I guessed yeou ought to hear the facks,” then, with some suddenness, stretching out his hand, he added, “I hev some way to go, an' my old woman 'ull be waitin' up fer me. Good night, Sheriff.” The hands met while the Sheriff nodded: “Good night, Jim.”

After a few greetings to right and left Mr. Crosskey left the bar. The crowd went on smoking, chewing, and drinking, but the sense of expectancy was still in the air, and the seriousness seemed, if anything, to have increased. Five or ten minutes may have passed when a man named Reid, who had run for the post of Sub-Sheriff the year before, and had failed to beat Johnson's nominee Jarvis, rose from his chair and asked abruptly:

“Sheriff, do you reckon to take any of us uns with you to-morrow?”

With an indefinable ring of sarcasm in his negligent tone, the Sheriff answered:

“I guess not, Mr. Reid.”

Quickly Reid replied: “Then I reckon there's no use in us stayin';” and turning to a small knot of men among whom he had been sitting, he added, “Let's go, boys!”

The men got up and filed out after their leader without greeting the Sheriff in any way. With the departure of this group the shadow lifted. Those who still remained showed in manner a marked relief, and a moment or two later a man named Morris, whom I knew to be a gambler by profession, called out lightly:

“The crowd and you'll drink with me, Sheriff, I hope? I want another glass, and then we won't keep you up any longer, for you ought to have a night's rest with to-morrow's work before you.”

The Sheriff smiled assent. Every one moved towards the bar, and conversation became general. Morris was the centre of the company, and he directed the talk jokingly to the account in the “Tribune,” making fun, as it seemed to me, though I did not understand all his allusions, of the editor's timidity and pretentiousness. Morris interested and amused me even more than he amused the others; he talked like a man of some intelligence and reading, and listening to him I grew light-hearted and careless, perhaps more careless than usual, for my spirits had been ice-bound in the earlier gloom of the evening.

“Fortunately our County and State authorities can be fully trusted,” some one said.

“Mark that 'fortunately,' Sheriff,” laughed Morris. “The editor was afraid to mention you alone, so he hitched the State on with you to lighten the load.”

“Ay!” chimed in another of the gamblers, “and the 'aid and succour of each and every citizen,' eh, Sheriff, as if you'd take the whole town with you. I guess two or three'll be enough fer Williams.”

This annoyed me. It appeared to me that Williams had addressed a personal challenge to the Sheriff, and I thought that Johnson should so consider it. Without waiting for the Sheriff to answer, whether in protest or acquiescence, I broke in:

“Two or three would be cowardly. One should go, and one only.” At once I felt rather than saw the Sheriff free himself from the group of men; the next moment he stood opposite to me.

“What was that?” he asked sharply, holding me with keen eye and out-thrust chin--repressed passion in voice and look.

The antagonism of his bearing excited and angered me not a little. I replied:

“I think it would be cowardly to take two or three against a single man. I said one should go, and I say so still.”

“Do you?” he sneered. “I guess you'd go alone, wouldn't you? to bring Williams in?”

“If I were paid for it I should,” was my heedless retort. As I spoke his face grew white with such passion that I instinctively put up my hands to defend myself, thinking he was about to attack me. The involuntary movement may have seemed boyish to him, for thought came into his eyes, and his face relaxed; moving away he said quietly:

“I'll set up drinks, boys.”

They grouped themselves about him and drank, leaving me isolated. But this, now my blood was up, only added to the exasperation I felt at his contemptuous treatment, and accordingly I walked to the bar, and as the only unoccupied place was by Johnson's side I went there and said, speaking as coolly as I could:

“Though no one asks me to drink I guess I'll take some whisky, bar-keeper, if you please.” Johnson was standing with his back to me, but when I spoke he looked round, and I saw, or thought I saw, a sort of curiosity in his gaze. I met his eye defiantly. He turned to the others and said, in his ordinary, slow way:

“Wall, good night, boys; I've got to go. It's gittin' late, an' I've had about as much as I want.”

Whether he alluded to the drink or to my impertinence I was unable to divine. Without adding a word he left the room amid a chorus of “Good night, Sheriff!” With him went Martin and half-a-dozen more.

I thought I had come out of the matter fairly well until I spoke to some of the men standing near. They answered me, it is true, but in monosyllables, and evidently with unwillingness. In silence I finished my whisky, feeling that every one was against me for some inexplicable cause. I resented this and stayed on. In a quarter of an hour the rest of the crowd had departed, with the exception of Morris and a few of the same kidney.

When I noticed that these gamblers, outlaws by public opinion, held away from me, I became indignant. Addressing myself to Morris, I asked:

“Can you tell me, sir, for you seem to be an educated man, what I have said or done to make you all shun me?”

“I guess so,” he answered indifferently. “You took a hand in a game where you weren't wanted. And you tried to come in without ever having paid the _ante,_ which is not allowed in any game--at least not in any game played about here.”

The allusion seemed plain; I was not only a stranger, but a foreigner; that must be my offence. With a “Good night, sir; good night, bar-keeper!” I left the room.

* * * * *

The next morning I went as usual to the office. I may have been seated there about an hour--it was almost eight o'clock--when I heard a knock at the door.

“Come in,” I said, swinging round in the American chair, to find myself face to face with Sheriff Johnson.

“Why, Sheriff, come in!” I exclaimed cheerfully, for I was relieved at seeing him, and so realized more clearly than ever that the unpleasantness of the previous evening had left in me a certain uneasiness. I was eager to show that the incident had no importance:

“Won't you take a seat? and you'll have a cigar?--these are not bad.”

“No, thank you,” he answered. “No, I guess I won't sit nor smoke jest now.” After a pause, he added, “I see you're studyin'; p'r'aps you're busy to-day; I won't disturb you.”

“You don't disturb me, Sheriff,” I rejoined. “As for studying, there's not much in it. I seem to prefer dreaming.”

“Wall,” he said, letting his eyes range round the walls furnished with Law Reports bound in yellow calf, “I don't know, I guess there's a big lot of readin' to do before a man gets through with all those.”

“Oh,” I laughed, “the more I read the more clearly I see that law is only a sermon on various texts supplied by common sense.”

“Wall,” he went on slowly, coming a pace or two nearer and speaking with increased seriousness, “I reckon you've got all Locock's business to see after: his clients to talk to; letters to answer, and all that; and when he's on the drunk I guess he don't do much. I won't worry you any more.”

“You don't worry me,” I replied. “I've not had a letter to answer in three days, and not a soul comes here to talk about business or anything else. I sit and dream, and wish I had something to do out there in the sunshine. Your work is better than reading words, words--nothing but words.”

“You ain't busy; hain't got anything to do here that might keep you? Nothin'?”

“Not a thing. I'm sick of Blackstone and all Commentaries.”

Suddenly I felt his hand on my shoulder (moving half round in the chair, I had for the moment turned sideways to him), and his voice was surprisingly hard and quick:

“Then I swear you in as a Deputy-Sheriff of the United States, and of this State of Kansas; and I charge you to bring in and deliver at the Sheriff's house, in this county of Elwood, Tom Williams, alive or dead, and--there's your fee, five dollars and twenty-five cents!” and he laid the money on the table.

Before the singular speech was half ended I had swung round facing him, with a fairly accurate understanding of what he meant. But the moment for decision had come with such sharp abruptness, that I still did not realize my position, though I replied defiantly as if accepting the charge:

“I've not got a weapon.”

“The boys allowed you mightn't hev, and so I brought some along. You ken suit your hand.” While speaking he produced two or three revolvers of different sizes, and laid them before me.

Dazed by the rapid progress of the plot, indignant, too, at the trick played upon me, I took up the nearest revolver and looked at it almost without seeing it. The Sheriff seemed to take my gaze for that of an expert's curiosity.

“It shoots true,” he said meditatively, “plumb true; but it's too small to drop a man. I guess it wouldn't stop any one with grit in him.”

My anger would not allow me to consider his advice; I thrust the weapon in my pocket:

“I haven't got a buggy. How am I to get to Osawotamie?”

“Mine's hitched up outside. You ken hev it.”

Rising to my feet I said: “Then we can go.”

We had nearly reached the door of the office, when the Sheriff stopped, turned his back upon the door, and looking straight into my eyes said:

“Don't play foolish. You've no call to go. Ef you're busy, ef you've got letters to write, anythin' to do--I'll tell the boys you sed so, and that'll be all; that'll let you out.”

Half-humorously, as it seemed to me, he added: “You're young and a tenderfoot. You'd better stick to what you've begun upon. That's the way to do somethin'.--I often think it's the work chooses us, and we've just got to get down and do it.”

“I've told you I had nothing to do,” I retorted angrily; “that's the truth. Perhaps” (sarcastically) “this work chooses me.”

The Sheriff moved away from the door.

On reaching the street I stopped for a moment in utter wonder. At that hour in the morning Washington Street was usually deserted, but now it seemed as if half the men in the town had taken up places round the entrance to Locock's office stairs. Some sat on barrels or boxes tipped up against the shop-front (the next store was kept by a German, who sold fruit and eatables); others stood about in groups or singly; a few were seated on the edge of the side-walk, with their feet in the dust of the street. Right before me and most conspicuous was the gigantic figure of Martin. He was sitting on a small barrel in front of the Sheriff's buggy.

“Good morning,” I said in the air, but no one answered me. Mastering my irritation, I went forward to undo the hitching-strap, but Martin, divining my intention, rose and loosened the buckle. As I reached him, he spoke in a low whisper, keeping his back turned to me:

“Shoot off a joke quick. The boys'll let up on you then. It'll be all right. Say somethin', for God's sake!”

The rough sympathy did me good, relaxed the tightness round my heart; the resentment natural to one entrapped left me, and some of my self-confidence returned:

“I never felt less like joking in my life, Martin, and humour can't be produced to order.”

He fastened up the hitching-strap, while I gathered the reins together and got into the buggy. When I was fairly seated he stepped to the side of the open vehicle, and, holding out his hand, said, “Good day,” adding, as our hands clasped, “Wade in, young un; wade in.”

“Good day, Martin. Good day, Sheriff. Good day, boys!”

To my surprise there came a chorus of answering “Good days!” as I drove up the street.

A few hundred yards I went, and then wheeled to the right past the post office, and so on for a quarter of a mile, till I reached the descent from the higher ground, on which the town was built, to the river. There, on my left, on the verge of the slope, stood the Sheriff's house in a lot by itself, with the long, low jail attached to it. Down the hill I went, and across the bridge and out into the open country. I drove rapidly for about five miles--more than halfway to Osawotamie--and then I pulled up, in order to think quietly and make up my mind.

I grasped the situation now in all its details. Courage was the one virtue which these men understood, the only one upon which they prided themselves. I, a stranger, a “tenderfoot,” had questioned the courage of the boldest among them, and this mission was their answer to my insolence. The “boys” had planned the plot; Johnson was not to blame; clearly he wanted to let me out of it; he would have been satisfied there in the office if I had said that I was busy; he did not like to put his work on any one else. And yet he must profit by my going. Were I killed, the whole country would rise against Williams; whereas if I shot Williams, the Sheriff would be relieved of the task. I wondered whether the fact of his having married made any difference to the Sheriff. Possibly--and yet it was not the Sheriff; it was the “boys” who had insisted on giving me the lesson. Public opinion was dead against me. “I had come into a game where I was not wanted, and I had never even paid the _ante_”--that was Morris's phrase. Of course it was all clear now. I had never given any proof of courage, as most likely all the rest had at some time or other. That was the _ante_ Morris meant....

My wilfulness had got me into the scrape; I had only myself to thank. Not alone the Sheriff but Martin would have saved me had I profited by the door of escape which he had tried to open for me. Neither of them wished to push the malice to the point of making me assume the Sheriff's risk, and Martin at least, and probably the Sheriff also, had taken my quick, half-unconscious words and acts as evidence of reckless determination. If I intended to live in the West I must go through with the matter.

But what nonsense it all was! Why should I chuck away my life in the attempt to bring a desperate ruffian to justice? And who could say that Williams was a ruffian? It was plain that his quarrel with the Sheriff was one of old date and purely personal. He had “stopped” Judge Shannon in order to bring about a duel with the Sheriff. Why should I fight the Sheriff's duels? Justice, indeed! justice had nothing to do with this affair; I did not even know which man was in the right. Reason led directly to the conclusion that I had better turn the horse's head northwards, drive as fast and as far as I could, and take the train as soon as possible out of the country. But while I recognized that this was the only sensible decision, I felt that I could not carry it into action. To run away was impossible; my cheeks burned with shame at the thought.

Was I to give my life for a stupid practical joke? “Yes!”--a voice within me answered sharply. “It would be well if a man could always choose the cause for which he risks his life, but it may happen that he ought to throw it away for a reason that seems inadequate.”

“What ought I to do?” I questioned.

“Go on to Osawotamie, arrest Williams, and bring him into Kiota,” replied my other self.

“And if he won't come?”

“Shoot him--you are charged to deliver him 'alive or dead' at the Sheriff's house. No more thinking, drive straight ahead and act as if you were a representative of the law and Williams a criminal. It has to be done.”

The resolution excited me, I picked up the reins and proceeded. At the next section-line I turned to the right, and ten or fifteen minutes later saw Osawotamie in the distance.

I drew up, laid the reins on the dashboard, and examined the revolver. It was a small four-shooter, with a large bore. To make sure of its efficiency I took out a cartridge; it was quite new. While weighing it in my hand, the Sheriff's words recurred to me, “It wouldn't stop any one with grit in him.” What did he mean? I didn't want to think, so I put the cartridge in again, cocked and replaced the pistol in my right-side jacket pocket, and drove on. Osawotamie consisted of a single street of straggling frame-buildings. After passing half-a-dozen of them I saw, on the right, one which looked to me like a saloon. It was evidently a stopping-place. There were several hitching-posts, and the house boasted instead of a door two green Venetian blinds put upon rollers--the usual sign of a drinking-saloon in the West.

I got out of the buggy slowly and carefully, so as not to shift the position of the revolver, and after hitching up the horse, entered the saloon. Coming out of the glare of the sunshine I could hardly see in the darkened room. In a moment or two my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, and I went over to the bar, which was on my left. The bar-keeper was sitting down; his head and shoulders alone were visible; I asked him for a lemon squash.

“Anythin' in it?” he replied, without lifting his eyes.

“No; I'm thirsty and hot.”

“I guessed that was about the figger,” he remarked, getting up leisurely and beginning to mix the drink with his back to me.

I used the opportunity to look round the room. Three steps from me stood a tall man, lazily leaning with his right arm on the bar, his fingers touching a half-filled glass. He seemed to be gazing past me into the void, and thus allowed me to take note of his appearance. In shirt-sleeves, like the bar-keeper, he had a belt on in which were two large revolvers with white ivory handles. His face was prepossessing, with large but not irregular features, bronzed fair skin, hazel eyes, and long brown moustache. He looked strong and was lithe of form, as if he had not done much hard bodily work. There was no one else in the room except a man who appeared to be sleeping at a table in the far corner with his head pillowed on his arms.

As I completed this hasty scrutiny of the room and its inmates, the bar-keeper gave me my squash, and I drank eagerly. The excitement had made me thirsty, for I knew that the crisis must be at hand, but I experienced no other sensation save that my heart was thumping and my throat was dry. Yawning as a sign of indifference (I had resolved to be as deliberate as the Sheriff) I put my hand in my pocket on the revolver. I felt that I could draw it out at once.

I addressed the bar-keeper:

“Say, do you know the folk here in Osawotamie?”

After a pause he replied:

“Most on 'em, I guess.”

Another pause and a second question:

“Do you know Tom Williams?”

The eyes looked at me with a faint light of surprise in them; they looked away again, and came back with short, half suspicious, half curious glances.

“Maybe you're a friend of his'n?”

“I don't know him, but I'd like to meet him.”

“Would you, though?” Turning half round, the bar-keeper took down a bottle and glass, and poured out some whisky, seemingly for his own consumption. Then: “I guess he's not hard to meet, isn't Williams, ef you and me mean the same man.”

“I guess we do,” I replied; “Tom Williams is the name.”

“That's me,” said the tall man who was leaning on the bar near me, “that's my name.”

“Are you the Williams that stopped Judge Shannon yesterday?”

“I don't know his name,” came the careless reply, “but I stopped a man in a buck-board.”

Plucking out my revolver, and pointing it low down on his breast, I said:

“I'm sent to arrest you; you must come with me to Kiota.”

Without changing his easy posture, or a muscle of his face, he asked in the same quiet voice:

“What does this mean, anyway? Who sent you to arrest me?”

“Sheriff Johnson,” I answered.

The man started upright, and said, as if amazed, in a quick, loud voice:

“Sheriff Johnson sent _you_ to arrest me?”

“Yes,” I retorted, “Sheriff Samuel Johnson swore me in this morning as his deputy, and charged me to bring you into Kiota.”

In a tone of utter astonishment he repeated my words, “Sheriff Samuel Johnson!”

“Yes,” I replied, “Samuel Johnson, Sheriff of Elwood County.”

“See here,” he asked suddenly, fixing me with a look of angry suspicion, “what sort of a man is he? What does he figger like?”

“He's a little shorter than I am,” I replied curtly, “with a brown beard and bluish eyes--a square-built sort of man.”

“Hell!” There was savage rage and menace in the exclamation.

“You kin put that up!” he added, absorbed once more in thought. I paid no attention to this; I was not going to put the revolver away at his bidding. Presently he asked in his ordinary voice:

“What age man might this Johnson be?”

“About forty or forty-five, I should think.”

“And right off Sam Johnson swore you in and sent you to bring me into Kiota--an' him Sheriff?”

“Yes,” I replied impatiently, “that's so.”

“Great God!” he exclaimed, bringing his clenched right hand heavily down on the bar. “Here, Zeke!” turning to the man asleep in the corner, and again he shouted “Zeke!” Then, with a rapid change of manner, and speaking irritably, he said to me:

“Put that thing up, I say.”

The bar-keeper now spoke too: “I guess when Tom sez you kin put it up, you kin. You hain't got no use fur it.”

The changes of Williams' tone from wonder to wrath and then to quick resolution showed me that the doubt in him had been laid, and that I had but little to do with the decision at which he had arrived, whatever that decision might be. I understood, too, enough of the Western spirit to know that he would take no unfair advantage of me. I therefore uncocked the revolver and put it back into my pocket. In the meantime Zeke had got up from his resting-place in the corner and had made his way sleepily to the bar. He had taken more to drink than was good for him, though he was not now really drunk.

“Give me and Zeke a glass, Joe,” said Williams; “and this gentleman, too, if he'll drink with me, and take one yourself with us.”

“No,” replied the bar-keeper sullenly, “I'll not drink to any damned foolishness. An' Zeke won't neither.”