Sheriff Badgely looked curiously at the speaker, as though he did not exactly sense all that he said in his pedagogue way; for Smithy was as exact in his manner of speech as long ago he used to be dudish in his dress, until the rougher element among the scouts cured him of that fault.
“Thank ye, son,” the officer finally remarked, thinking that this ought to cover the bill, and not expose his ignorance concerning fine language.
“It certainly does you credit, Mr. Sheriff, that you’ve undertaken a job which all your predecessors seemed to have shirked,” Allan went on to say; for he had somehow taken a sort of sudden fancy for the small man, who seemed to be as lively as a cricket, and full of vim and go.
“Oh! I might as well confess to ye, son,” remarked the sheriff with a chuckle; “that p’raps I might a kept aputtin’ the raid off right along, jest like Sheriff Zeb Coles done fo’ nigh on eleven yeahs, till he turned up his toes and was put under ground, only fo’ a certain thing happenin’. Fact is, they has been a big robbery up-country a bit, an’ only two days back we got word as how the man suspected o’ doin’ the same was a lyin’ low in ole Alligator Swamp. Co’se, after that thar wa’n’t no excuse fo’ me not to raise a big posse, and try to just clean things out down heah; ’case you see, the man that had been robbed he offered to pay the wages of every man and boy that’d go along, and put five thousand dollahs in my hand in addition, if so be I was lucky enough to ketch thet slick thief, an’ recover the stuff as had been taken from him.”
“I can see how that was a spur, just as you say, sir,” Thad remarked, smiling at the naive way in which the officer admitted that the chances of a fat reward made an alluring bait at any time.
“Well, it gave me a chanct to collect the greatest posse ever seen in these heah parts; an’ we’re just bound to have the biggest lot of fun afoah we quits the game ever heard tell of,” the sheriff went on to say; “but sorry to tell you, boys, we’ll likely have to part company right now, and take up our hunt.”
“Have you come across anything in the way of game so far?” asked Giraffe.
“Oh! we done sent that ole voodoo man to town under guard,” replied the other, carelessly; “you see, he’s been makin’ heaps o’ trouble lately, gettin’ some o’ the hands on the sugar plantations to throwin’ up their jobs in the busy season, an’ fillin’ ’em full o’ horrible notions sech as the voodoo practices. And we kim to the conclusion that it had to stop. He’ll get sent where he won’t do no more damage in ignorant minds. Afore we-uns are through with our job we calculate to pick up a number o’ convicts that’s been hidin’ out in this region; but we’ll try to devote most of our time and attention to findin’ this heah slick Jasper.”
When the sheriff happened to casually mention the man for whom all this remarkable preparation had been made, Thad exchanged a quick glance with his closest chum, Allan; for the officer who was sworn to carry out the mandates of the law had spoken the name of the party of whom the scouts were in search, and who was believed by Thad to be the kidnapper of his little baby sister, Pauline, years before.