MRS. VERNON. Well, I can't see what right Jim Radburn has got to be as strong with the Democracy as Joe Vernon. [Crosses to dish-pan.
JOE. You can't say nothin' against Jim, ma.
MRS. VERNON. I ain't. I'm just askin'.
BOLLINGER. Well, you see Jim's bein' sheriff four terms, an' never shootin' anybody—
MRS. VERNON. Why, he's shot fifty!
BOLLINGER. Well, I meant never killin' nobody, has naturally endeared him to the peaceable element in the community. Jim has always said, and stuck to it, that a sheriff who couldn't wing a prisoner without killin' him, was a nuisance—and you take his record, and go clean through it, you'll find out this one thing. If a man was runnin', Jim fetched him in the leg. If he pulled a gun on him, Jim smashed that hand. And he says, "You ain't got a right to kill another man, unless that man draws two guns at the same time."
JOE. Yes, I reckon Jim's the gamest we ever had.
BOLLINGER. He came up on the stage to-night from Louisiana.
JOE. Was he "'lectioneering" down there?
BOLLINGER. No, I ain't heerd of him makin' no canvass. He was helpin' me to collect testimony.