"You'll either have to get some nerve or else stick mighty close to your friends here," declared the sheriff, who had remained to talk with the boys who had shown such pluck.
"Maybe I'll go back to Germany," sighed Hans.
"Oh, you'll get used to this part of the world after a while.
Where are you going?"
"Tolopah."
"Well, that ain't the most refined place in the world," chuckled the man of the law, "but I don't believe you'll get as bad as what you got."
Pondering over this none too reassuring remark, Hans lapsed into silence, while Tom and Larry plied the sheriff with questions about life on the ranches and the antics of the cowboys.
As evening came on the boys grew restive. Their train was due at Tolopah at nine the next morning, and despite the fact that it was rushing along at the rate of forty miles an hour, it seemed to them to be scarcely moving. They had already passed two nights and two days on the train and the thought of putting another night in the berth, especially as it was very hot, seemed impossible, making them fretful and cross.
"Who is he?" asked Larry of the conductor, after the sheriff had left the train.
"What, you never heard of Sam Jenks, sheriff of Pawnee County?"
"We come from Ohio," said Tom, as though apologizing for their ignorance.