"Go to it. That's what they put you in for."
"I know," he said, with a return to gloom, "but you can't do everything in six months. I've got to move according to law, being how I am situated. And they've been awful careful, them two have."
He fell to communing with himself, and we went steadily forward, the ponies shuffling the dust in a dejected chop-trot. It was almost noon, and the heat waves were lifting from the ground like the smoke of an oil flame. We passed a dead tree, and the sheriff roused from reverie.
"They done hung Dave Pearsall from there six years back," he said, with a jerk of his head.
I glanced around for the grave, it being the custom to inter close to the scene of the taking-off.
"It's over beyond. No, you can't see it, 'count of that rise. But you get your eye on that tree. Notice? And now the Mother of Cottonwoods'll die, too."
"Pshaw!" said I, laughing. "You don't believe that old woman's tale, do you?"
"Of course, now," he said patiently, "you know better."
Many cowmen had voiced the superstition, but the sheriff had not struck me as of a credulous type.
"I've knowed eight men to be strung up on eight big, sound trees," he went on, "and I've seen eight trees that looked as if the devil had smashed 'em. Blasted. Yes, sir; dead as a rat and deader. You wait and see."