In the "Stranger People's" country

by Charles Egbert Craddock

The officer had faced about on the barrel and sat bolt-upright, a hand on either knee, his amazement looking alertly out of his light-gray eyes.

"He hev quit that, though, lately," the smith struck in, dropping the hoof to which he had tentatively applied the shoe and standing still, half supporting himself with his hand on the shoulder of the animal, who once more turned his head with a slow, deprecatory motion, and gazed back upon the displeasing and seemingly incompetent doings of this dilatory workman. "Baker Anderson—he's a half-grown boy ez hev been 'bidin' at Mis' Yates's of a night ter keer fur the house agin lawless ones an' sech—he kem hyar this mornin' ter git his plough sharpened, an' he 'lows ez this hyar Shattuck say he wants ter dig up the bones of the Leetle People, buried nigh the ruver on Fee Guthrie's lan'. An' Steve favored it; but Mis' Yates 'lowed she'd shoot him ef he tampered with the Leetle People's bones, an' Baker 'lows ez that war why Steve lef' her."

"The Leetle People!" echoed the sheriff in a dazed tone, as if he hardly believed his ears.

"Lord A'mighty, Tawmmy Carew! Hain't ye never heard 'bout a lot o' small-sized people, no bigger'n chil'n, ez hed this kentry 'fore the Injun kem—'bout the time o' the flood, I reckon." Old Bakewell hardily hazarded this speculation, which had about as much justification of probability as the conclusions of many other scientists of more pretensions. "Hev ye got yer growth ez a man, an' lived ter be 'lected sher'ff o' the county, an' ter thrive on the hope o' bein' 'lected agin, an' yit air ez green ez a gourd?—so green ez never ter hev hearn tell o' the Leetle Stranger People?" demanded the old man, scornfully.

Thus adjured, the sheriff, for his credit's sake, was fain to refresh his memory. "'Pears like I useter know some sech old tale ez that, but I had nigh forgot it," he said, mendaciously, the lie staring irrepressibly out of his widely opened, astonished eyes. "I never 'lowed it war true."

"But it air true," said the smith, the shoe and hammer hanging listlessly in one hand, while the other, leaning heavily on the horse's back, sufficed to transfer much of his weight to the animal. "They air the nighest neighbors Mis' Yates hev got. An' though Steve an' this man Shattuck agreed so mighty well, Mis' Yates couldn't abide the idee o' diggin' up the Leetle People's bones, an' swore she'd shoot ennybody ez tried it. An', by hokey"—with a sudden excitement in his eyes—"she done it! Las' night, Baker say, this man an' Rhodes war thar in the pig buryin'-ground—he calls them humans 'pigs'—an' she gin 'em two toler'ble fair shots. Shoots toler'ble well fur a 'oman. Baker say the bullet cut through Shattuck's hair good fashion."

"Waal, that's agin the law," said the sheriff, with his bitter, implacable official expression; "assault with intent to kill."

"Oh, shet up, Tawmmy," the old man admonished him from the vantage-ground of his age and experience. "What else air fire-arms manufactured fur?"

Beyond this cogent reasoning "Tawmmy's" speculation could not go. Nevertheless, he was sworn to administer the law, albeit thrice proven a foolish device of fools, and his brow did not relax. It was with a dark frown, indeed, that he contemplated the mental image of Mrs. Yates, because he felt that it behooved women so to order their walk and conversation as to keep without the notice of the law, since it was infinitely unpalatable to him to enforce it where they were concerned, making him, rather than the culprit, the sufferer, and forcing him to endure many unclassified phases and extremes of mental anguish. He protested at times that they ought to be exempted from the operations of the law. "They ain't got no reason, nohow," he gallantly asseverated. "An' what sorter figure does a big man cut arrestin' a leetle bit of a 'oman? An' no jury ain't goin' ter convict 'em, ef they kin git around it, an' no jedge ain't goin' ter charge agin 'em, ef he kin holp himself. The law jes' devils the sher'ff with 'em; he hev got ter go through all the motions fur nuthin'. They say Jedge Kinnear air a out an' out 'oman's jedge. An' no man, even in civil cases, hev got a chance agin enny 'oman or enny minor chil'n, gals 'specially, in his court. Waal, now, I'm a man's sher'ff. An' I want the wimmin an' chil'n ter keep out'n my way, an' I'll keep out'n theirn."

Shattuck, however, and especially as connected with Rhodes, offered a prospect more in keeping with his professions and views of his office. "What do he want ter dig up thar bones fur?" he demanded. "That air agin the law, too."