"Supposin' she did prove it, what then?" broke in the high sheriff of the bailiwick. "The county would have to feed him for a couple of months or so and then turn him loose again to go right back to stealing, same as before. The best way to punish a thief, accordin' to my notion, is to keep him everlastingly on the jump, scared to death to show his face anywheres and always hatin' to go to sleep for fear he'll wake up and find somebody pointin' a pistol at him and sayin,' 'Well, I got you at last, dang ye.' Besides, lockin' Mart up isn't going to bring back Mrs. Gwyn's sheep, is it?"
"When that gal of his tells her story in court to-morrow," advanced the third member of the group, "there'll be plenty of people in this town that won't be put off a second time by any fife and drum shinanigan."
"Anyhow," said the sheriff, "I didn't want to have the blamed skunk on my mind while we're organizin' the company. It's bad enough havin' to go out and fight Indians without worryin' all the time I'm away about whether anybody back here has had sense enough to keep Martin from starvin' to death. I guess we'd better mosey along up to the drill ground, boys. Martin's got into the bushes by this time, and if I'm any kind of a guesser he ain't dawdlin' along smellin' every spring flower he comes across."
"Don't you think you'd better go over an' take a look around the jail first?"
"What for? There ain't anybody in it."
"No, but like as not the dog-gasted whelp run off with that padlock, an' we'd ought to know it before he gets too big a start. Padlocks cost money," explained the other, with a dry chuckle and a dig in the sheriff's ribs.
"So do prisoners," was the rejoinder of this remarkable sheriff.
And thus it came to pass that between the sheriff and Kenneth Gwynne and Moll Hawk, the county got rid of three iniquitous individuals. One rode forth in broad daylight on a matchless thoroughbred; another stole off like a weasel in the night, and the third took passage on the Ship that Never Returns.