"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 Sheriffs 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 sc.r.a.pe; 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 a.s.sume 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, c.o.c.ked and replaced the pistol in my right-side jacket pocket, and drove on. Osawotamie consisted of a single street of straggling frame-buildings. After pa.s.sing 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 gla.s.s. 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 gla.s.s, 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."