And now the whole town was trembling with a new excitement, due to the recognition accorded her triple official. On Monday morning he had ventured forth from his office in the long-deserted "calaboose," resplendent in a brand-new nickel-plated star. By noon everybody in town knew that he was a genuine "detective," a member of the great organisation known as the New York Imperial Detective Association; and that fresh honour had come to Tinkletown through the agency of a post-revolution generation. The beauty of it all was that Anderson never lost a shred of his serenity in explaining how the association had implored him to join its forces, even going so far as to urge him to come to New York City, where he could assist and advise in all of its large operations. And, moreover, he had been obliged to pay but ten dollars membership fee, besides buying the blazing star for the paltry sum of three dollars and a quarter.
Every passer-by on this bright spring morning offered a respectful "Howdy" to Anderson Crow, whose only recognition was a slow and imposing nod of the head. Once only was he driven to relinquish his pensive attitude, and that was when an impertinent blue-bottle fly undertook to rest for a brief spell upon the nickel-plated star. Never was blue-bottle more energetically put to flight.
But even as the Tinkletown Pooh-Bah posed in restful supremacy there were rushing down upon him affairs of the epoch-making kind. Up in the clear, lazy sky a thunderbolt was preparing to hurl itself into the very heart of Tinkletown, and at the very head of Anderson Crow.
Afterward it was recalled by observing citizens that just before noon—seven minutes to twelve, in fact—a small cloud no bigger than the proverbial hand crossed the sun hurriedly as if afraid to tarry. At that very instant a stranger drove up to the hitching-rack, bringing his sweat-covered horse to a standstill so abruptly in front of the marshal's nose that that dignitary's hat fell off backward.
"Whoa!" came clearly and unmistakably from the lips of the stranger who held the reins. Half a dozen loafers on the post-office steps were positive that he said nothing more, a fact that was afterward worth remembering.
"Here!" exclaimed Anderson Crow wrathfully. "Do you know what you're doin', consarn you?"
"I beg pardon," everybody within hearing heard the young man say. "Is this the city of Tinkletown?" He said "city," they could swear, every man's son of them.
"Yes, it is," answered the marshal severely. "What of it?"
"That's all. I just wanted to know. Where's the store?"
"Which store?" quite crossly. The stranger seemed nonplussed at this.