The Sheriff And His Partner | Page 3

the lazy, cool glance which one man after another cast upon me, as I went by. Assuming an air of indecision I threaded my way through the chairs uptilted against the sides of the billiard-tables. I had drained a glass of Bourbon whisky before I realized that these apparently careless men were stirred by some emotion which made them more cautious, more silent, more warily on their guard than usual. The gamblers and loafers, too, had taken "back seats" this evening, whilst hard-working men of the farmer class who did not frequent the expensive bar of the Carvell House were to be seen in front. It dawned upon me that the matter was serious, and was being taken seriously.
The silence was broken from time to time by some casual remark of no interest, drawled out in a monotone; every now and then a man invited the "crowd" to drink with him, and that was all. Yet the moral atmosphere was oppressive, and a vague feeling of discomfort grew upon me. These men "meant business."
Presently the door on my left opened--Sheriff Johnson came into the room.
"Good evenin'," he said; and a dozen voices, one after another, answered with "Good evenin'! good evenin', Sheriff!" A big frontiersman, however, a horse-dealer called Martin, who, I knew, had been on the old vigilance committee, walked from the centre of the group in front of the bar to the Sheriff, and held out his hand with:
"Shake, old man, and name the drink." The 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 out jutting 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