Henry goes prehistoric

HENRY GOES PREHISTORIC
By W. C. Tuttle
The Sheriff of Tonto City Could Expect Anything to Come Out of the Night in Wild Horse Valley—Even an Idea
“Judge” Van Treece was mad; so mad that he deliberately threw his beloved, and badly dog-eared copy of Shakespeare, across the office, where it fluttered to the floor, like a wounded duck. He didn’t even look at the poor thing, as he sat, tilted back in an old chair, his high heels hooked around a rung of his chair, which brought his bony, overall-clad knees, almost up to his chin. Judge had the features of a tragedian, and just now he glared his hate at nobody in particular.
Henry Harrison Conroy, the sheriff of Tonto City, got up from his creaking desk chair, retrieved the dog-eared copy and placed it on his desk. While Judge was inches over six feet in height, and as skinny as a sand-hill crane, Henry Harrison Conroy was barely five feet, seven inches in his high-heel boots. However, Henry was fashioned after the specifications of the well-known Humpty Dumpty. Henry had very little hair, a face like a full moon, small eyes and the biggest nose that ever gleamed above the footlights in vaudeville. That nose had been known from one end of most vaudeville chains to the other, featured, in fact.
He looked quizzically at Judge, as he sat down.
“After all, Judge,” he said, “you can not blame William Shakespeare.”
“I have,” declared Judge hollowly, looking straight ahead, “a notion of resigning. I still have my pride, sir. My body may belong to Wild Horse Valley, but my soul is still my own.”
“Ah, yes—pride and soul; resignation—no!” mumbled Henry. “No, that is not the solution, Judge. There must be some other way to handle the situation. We’ll fight this out to the bitter end.”
“So you think there will be a bitter end, Henry?”
“Let us look calmly upon the matter at hand,” suggested Henry. “I must admit that those Commissioners are irksome. They did decry our lack of ability in coping with the crime wave, which seems to be washing upon our shores. It is very unfortunate that recent gold strikes have filled Tonto City to overflowing with some damnable riff-raff, which always drifts in with new gold strikes, like buzzards after a dead animal. Our once-peaceful pueblo of Tonto is filled with covetous folk, who work not, neither do they spin. And we, you and I, Judge, are the Keepers of the Peace—such as it is.”