“Walker! That critter up fer sheriff?”
“Yas. And, a-course, Hank’s been behind Bergin t’ git him re’lected fer the ’leventh time.”
“I know, and Bergin’s got t’ win. Why, Bergin’s the only fit man.”
“Wal, now, if our paper cain’t git in and crow the loudest, and tell how many kinds of a swine the other feller is, how’s Bergin goin’ t’ win?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I. (You see how ticklish things is?) Wal, here’s Hank in no shape to make any kind of a newspaper fight, but just achin’ t’ use his gun on anybody that comes nigh him. Why, I never seen such a change in a man in all my born life!”
I was surprised some more. I didn’t know Hank packed a gun. He was a darned nice cuss, and ev’rybody shore liked him, and he’d never been laid up fer repairs account of somethin’ he’d put in his paper. He was square, smart’s a steel-trap, and white clean through. Had a handshake that was hung on a hair-trigger, and a smile so winnin’ that he could coax the little prairie-dawgs right outen they holes.
Hairoil goes on. “I can see Briggs City eatin’ the shucks when it comes ’lection-day,” he says, “and that Goldstone man cabbagin’ the sheriff’s office. Buckshot Milliken tole me this mornin’ that the Tarantula called Bergin ‘a slouch’ last week; ‘so low-down he'd eat sheep,’ too, and ‘such a blamed pore shot he couldn’t hit the side of a barn.’”
“That’s goin’ too far.”
“So I say. I wanted Bergin t’ go over to Goldstone and give ’em a sample of his gun-play that’d interfere with the printin’ of they one-hoss sheet. But Bergin said it was no use–the Tarantula editor is wearin’ a sheet-iron thing-um-a-jig acrosst his back and his front, and has to use a screw-driver t’ take off his clothes.”