The Sheriff And His Partner | Page 8

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."
"Oh, yes, he will," Williams returned persuasively, "and so'll you, Joe. You aren't goin' back on me."
"No, I'll be just damned if I am," said the barkeeper, half-conquered.
"What'll you take, sir?" Williams asked me.
"The bar-keeper knows my figger," I answered, half-jestingly, not yet understanding the situation, but convinced that it was turning out better than I had expected.
"And you, Zeke?" he went on.
"The old pizen," Zeke replied.
"And now, Joe, whisky for you and me--the square bottle," he continued, with brisk cheerfulness.
In silence the bar-keeper placed the drinks before us. As soon as the glasses were empty Williams spoke again, putting out his hand to Zeke at the same time:
"Good-bye, old man, so long, but saddle up in two hours. Ef I don't come then, you kin clear; but I guess I'll be with you."
"Good-bye, Joe."
"Good-bye, Tom," replied the bar-keeper, taking the proffered hand, still half-unwillingly, "if you're stuck on it; but the game is to wait for 'em here--anyway that's how I'd play it."
A laugh and shake of the head and Williams addressed me:
"Now, sir, I'm ready if you are." We were walking towards the door, when Zeke broke in:
"Say, Tom, ain't I to come along?"
"No, Zeke, I'll play this hand alone," replied Williams, and two minutes later he and I were seated in the buggy, driving towards Kiota.
We had gone more than a mile before he spoke again. He began very quietly, as if confiding his thoughts to me:
"I don't want to make no mistake about this business--it ain't worth while. I'm sure you're right, and Sheriff Samuel Johnson sent you, but, maybe, ef you was to think you could kinder bring him before me. There might be two of the name, the age, the looks--though it ain't likely." Then, as if a sudden inspiration moved him:
"Where did he come from, this Sam Johnson, do you