The sheriff occupied a two-roomed frame shack on the edge of town. It was a cheerless hole of a place. His barn, where he kept his three horses, was inviting by comparison. Often of nights he paced the bare floor of the bedroom, and more than once the faint dawn was whitening the windows, and the cocks of all Badger were lustily heralding the sun, before he threw himself down to sleep. One evening he deposited his lantern on a chair and sat down in another beside it, and in that half-light tried to reason out the whole problem. About midnight he threw away his cigarette and prepared for bed.
"Well," he said, ruffling the sheet with his toes, "I give in. She may be worse'n ol' Dutch Annie, but I've got to have her. That's all there is to that."
He sought Hetty next evening after her work was done at the Fashion. She was standing in the rear doorway of the annex.
"I want you to marry me," he began.
"You do, do you? I suppose you think you're doing something mighty fine to ask me, don't you?" A slight color rose in her cheeks.
"Never mind what I think. I can't do without you. It must be love, I reckon, though it ain't what I thought that was. But I want you to marry me, anyhow. Will you?"
"No, I won't," she said.
"Yes, you will, too."
"I wouldn't marry you, Lafe Johnson, if you were the last man on top of earth." She turned indoors.
The sheriff went home, very quiet indeed.