“Sheriff, hev yeou read this 'Tribune'?”
Wheeling half round towards his questioner, the Sheriff replied:
“Yes, sir, I hev.” A pause ensued, which was made significant to me by the fact that the bar-keeper suspended his hand and did not pour out the whisky he had just been asked to supply—a pause during which the two faced each other; it was broken by the farmer saying:
“Ez yeou wer out of town to-day, I allowed yeou might hev missed seein' it. I reckoned yeou'd come straight hyar before yeou went to hum.”
“No, Crosskey,” rejoined the Sheriff, with slow emphasis; “I went home first and came on hyar to see the boys.”
“Wall,” said Mr. Crosskey, as it seemed to me, half apologetically, “knowin' yeou I guessed yeou ought to hear the facks,” then, with some suddenness, stretching out his hand, he added, “I hev some way to go, an' my old woman 'ull be waitin' up fer me. Good night, Sheriff.” The hands met while the Sheriff nodded: “Good night, Jim.”
After a few greetings to right and left Mr. Crosskey left the bar. The crowd went on smoking, chewing, and drinking, but the sense of expectancy was still in the air, and the seriousness seemed, if anything, to have increased. Five or ten minutes may have passed when a man named Reid, who had run for the post of Sub-Sheriff the year before, and had failed to beat Johnson's nominee Jarvis, rose from his chair and asked abruptly:
“Sheriff, do you reckon to take any of us uns with you to-morrow?”
With an indefinable ring of sarcasm in his negligent tone, the Sheriff answered:
“I guess not, Mr. Reid.”