“I hev voted fur you-uns fur sher’ff nine time out’n ten,” he said, with the rancor of reproach for benefits conferred unworthily.
He stood with a very large majority of the enlightened citizens of the county. Enott Blake had been but recently reëlected, but if his canvass were to be made anew it is barely possible that he would have fancied he might have weathered it without the support of this ancient adherent. His office was of the sort which is not compatible with any show of personal favor, and he resented the reminder of political services as an imputation.
“Well, ye have got a sheriff that knows what attempted house-breaking is,” he said severely. “And unless ye can show a good reason for tryin’ to break into that door, ye’ll find ye have got a sheriff that will take a power o’ pains ye don’t break out again soon.”
Tubal Cain’s face, all wind-blown and red with the sun, and rugged with hard grooved wrinkles, and nervous with the untoward complications of achieving an audience with the man he had ridden so far to see, was shattered from the congruity of his gravity into a sort of fragmentary laughter out of keeping with the light of anxiety in his eyes.
“Did ye ever hear of a man tryin’ ter break inter a jail?” he demanded.
“I caught you doin’ it to the best of your ability,” returned the literal-minded sheriff.
Tubal Cain would have felt as if he were dreaming had it not been for sundry recollections of stories of the matter-of-fact tendencies of the officer which were far from reassuring. He felt that he could hardly have faced the situation had not the dapper round-visaged young deputy, whose blond hair curled like a baby’s in tendrils on his red, freckled forehead, glanced up at him with a jocose wink as he proceeded to draw the cartridges from the mountaineer’s shooting-iron; the triumph of capture was still in his eye, while he lounged carelessly over the banisters of the staircase to evade the responsibility and labor of standing upright.
“Own up, daddy,” he cavalierly admonished the elder. “Tell what you were aimin’ to do. To rescue prisoners”—his superior snorted at the very word—“or rob us of our vally’bles?” The sheriff turned upon the deputy with a stare of inquiry as if wondering what these might be; then, vaguely apprehending the banter, said severely:—
“Cuttin’ jokes about your bizness, Jeemes, so constant, makes me ’feard it’s a leetle bit too confinin’ for such a gay bird as you. Bar-keepin’ in a saloon would fit your build better’n the sort o’ bar-keepin’ we do here, I’m thinkin’.”
Enott Blake might be laughed at on occasion, but he had a trick of making other men as serious as himself when he sought to play upon their foibles. The blond deputy’s countenance showed that it had another and deeper tinge of red in its capacity; he came to the perpendicular suddenly as, without lifting his eyes, he continued to revolve the cylinder of the pistol and to draw the cartridges seriatim. He was but newly appointed, and zealous of the favor of his superior.