"You mought think from the sound they was electin' a new mayor, eh?" said the old man addressed as colonel. "B'ain't a hangin', for sure," and at these words I impulsively laid my hand on Apache Kid's forearm and pressed it; but the colonel at the same moment tapped Apache Kid on the small of the back, and he turned round to find that worthy holding up a leathery hand and saying, "Shake."
"With pleasure," said Apache Kid. "It is an honour to me to shake hands with you, Colonel."
The old man seemed to enjoy being addressed in this flattering fashion, which doubtless Apache Kid knew; for after the hand-shaking, when the colonel waddled away to the horses' heads to begin unhitching, a task in which Slim promptly assisted (I think more to ask questions, however, rather than to share the work), Apache Kid remarked to me:
"He 's a great character, that; he goes out about town now with the chain-gang; you must have seen him trotting behind them, with his head bowed, squinting up at his flock from the corners of his eyes, his rifle in hand. That's the job he gets in the evening of his days; but if any man could make your hair curl, as the expression is, that old man could do it with his yarns about the days when everything west of the Mississippi was the Great American Desert. He seems to be congratulating me on something. Whether he thinks I 'm one of the baddest bad men he 's ever seen, or whether——"
It was then that the sheriff came slowly down the three steps into the square.
"You two gentlemen," said he, "might be good enough to step this way. And say, Slim! That there pack-horse is jest to be left standing, meanwhile. I reckon the property on its back ain't come under the inspection of the law yet—quite."
I could have cried out with joy; not for myself, for the sheriff had led me to believe all the way that I had got mixed up with this "trouble" on the less objectionable side,—the right side. It was for Apache Kid that my heart gladdened. Yet he, to all appearance, was as little affected by this ray of hope as he had been by the expectation of "stretching hemp."
He swung his leg leisurely over on to the tire of the wheel, stepped daintily on to the hub, and leaped to the ground.
"At your service, Sheriff," said he, and I followed him.
I noticed that the sheriff had again assumed his ponderous frown, a frown that I was beginning to consider a meaningless thing,—a sort of mere badge of office. He led us into a white-painted room, where a young lady habited plainly in black sat, with bent and sidewise head. And we were no sooner into the room, hats in hand, than the door closed behind us and we heard the sheriff's ponderous tread depart with great emphasis down an echoing corridor.