In the "Stranger People's" country

by Charles Egbert Craddock

"Folks in Colbury 'lowed Doctor Ganey ought not ter hev let him be brung ter town nex' day in the cool o' the mornin' on a spring bed an' in a spring wagon; though he war turrible anxious ter be sure ter make a ante-mortem statement; the robbers hed got the saddle-bags an' money, ye see, an' he didn't want folks ter think 'twar him ez stole it."

There was a momentary pause, broken only by the sharp staccato sound of the hammer within the shop, beating into shape the shoe that must be fitted to the hoof; the horse outside turned his glossy neck, holding up the unshod hind foot a trifle from the ground, and looked through the door into the dark interior of the forge, where the smith's figure was to be dimly discerned in the scanty flicker of the smouldering fire; the animal watched the process with a definite anxiety and interest that seemed to bespeak a desire to superintend its proper performance. His resignation to human guidance evidently arose more from the constraint of circumstance than reliance on man's superior wisdom. More than once the blacksmith stopped to listen, and afterward the matters at the forge went awry; outside one could hear him muttering surly comments upon the inanimate appurtenances, especially when he dropped the hot iron once in taking it from the coals, letting it slip through the inadequate grasp of the tongs, and requested it to go to a hotter place even than the fire, and there to be infinitely and inimitably "dad-burned." All of which had as little effect as such objurgations usually do upon the insensate offender; but the ebullitions seemed to serve, like thunder, to clear the atmosphere, and to enable the smith better to resign himself to the terrible deprivation of the sheriff's talk, lost in the reverberations of his own hammer and the sibilant singing of the anvil.

Outside, the sound hardly impinged upon the privilege of conversation. The sheriff's lip was curling; he hastily shifted one leg over the other, and this posture enabled him to eye the toe of his boot, with which he seemed to have confidences in some sort, reverting to it in moments when at a loss, as if its contemplation in some incomprehensible way refreshed his memory.

"Waal, the bosses o' the consarn—shucks! mighty knowin' cusses—they would hev it 'twar some folks down yander neighborin' the mines. I won't say who, and I won't say what," he interpolated, with a sudden recollection of a seemly official reticence; "but ez 'twar thought the man wouldn't die, an' all war keen ter git holt o' the money agin, I hed ter go fust an' air thar s'picions, ez arter a-chasin' an' a-racin' an' keepin' secret an' mighty dark turned out nuthin' at all. Fust one man an' then t'other showed up in a different place that night. Every one! I lef' word with my dep'ty, Ben Boker, who 'twas I wanted looked arter, an' he tuk sick with the bilious fever the very day I lef', an' air a-bed yit; so I hev got behindhand with this job, an' I hope the folks won't lay it up agin me."

"Waal," said the old man, leaning forward, his hard hands clasped, a smile upon his wrinkled face, a slender sunbeam sifting through the boughs of the oak-tree, touching the thick tufts of gray hair on his brow, and brightening them to a whiter lustre, "I'll be bound old man Ganey warn't behindhand with his job," and he lifted his heavy eyebrows and chuckled softly.

"Naw, sir," said the officer, respectfully. "The doctor's job tuk off day before yestiddy mornin' 'fore daybreak. The doctor 'lowed ef he could make sunup he mought last through till evenin'. But he had seen his las' sunrise."

"Ez ef Dr. Ganey knowed sech," exclaimed the old man. "He 'pears ter me ez ef his foolishness grows on him. Ye'll die whenst yer time kems, an' it'll kem mighty quick ef ye hev in Ganey. An' yit," with a nodding head and narrowing eyes, "thar be them ez fairly pins thar hopes o' salvation on ter the wisdom, that air foolishness, o' that old consarn. Thar's a valley man, Shattuck, ez hev been 'bidin' fur a while with Len Rhodes in the cove, a-holpin' him 'lectioneer, an' whenst Len fell down a-dancin'—mus' hev been drunk—at the Pettingill infair, an' seemed ter bump his head a passel, an' shed some blood, nuthin' would do this Shattuck but Ganey mus' be sent fur. He threatened old man Pettingill with the gallus ef Rhodes should die."

"Old Zack Pettingill! Why, he's one of my bes' friends, an' a better man never lived," interrupted the officer, although he lent an attentive ear, for Rhodes was of the opposite party, and the sheriff was a candidate for re-election.

"Yes, sir"—the old man redoubled his emphasis—"though Phil Craig war in the house a-bathin' the wounds an' a-bindin' 'em up with yerbs ter take the soreness out. An' ef ye'll b'lieve me he cavorted so ez old Zack Pettingill, though an obstinate old sinner, hed ter gin up, an' put Steve Yates on his bes' horse, an' send seventeen miles fur Ganey. It all 'peared so onreasonable an' so all-fired redic'lous ez I couldn't holp but b'lieve ez this hyar Shattuck hed some yerrand o' his own ter send Yates on, special ez Dr. Ganey never kem."

"P'litical bizness—bribery an' sech," suggested the sheriff, acrimoniously, for each man was phenomenally eager for the success of the whole ticket. So closely were the opposing factions matched, so high ran party spirit in this section, that his own candidacy, albeit for a far different office, made him in some sort Rhodes's opponent.