"Come right in, boys. Jim's tendin' the baby." And she took their hats.
They stepped to the adjoining room where Sheriff Jim sat on the floor, his coat off, while his youngest deputy, clad only in an abbreviated essential garnished with a safety-pin, sat opposite, gravely tearing up the evening paper and handing the pieces to his proud father, who stuffed the pieces in his pants pocket and cheerfully asked for more.
"Election?" queried Shoop.
"And all coming Jim's way," commented Corliss.
The baby paused in his balloting and solemnly surveyed the dusty strangers. Then he pulled a piece of paper from his father's pocket and offered it to Shoop. "Wants me to vote, the little cuss! Well, here goes." And, albeit unfamiliar with plump aborigines at close range, the foreman entered into the spirit of the game and cast his vote for the present incumbent, deputizing the "yearlin'" to handle the matter. The yearling however, evidently thought it was time for a recount. He gravitated to the perspiring candidate and, standing on his hands and feet,—an attitude which seemingly caused him no inconvenience,—reached in the ballot-box and pulling therefrom a handful of votes he cast them ceiling-ward with a shrill laugh, followed by an unintelligible spluttering as he sat down suddenly and began to pick up the scattered pieces of paper.
"You're elected," announced Shoop.
And the by-play was understood by the three men, yet each maintained his unchanged expression of countenance.
"You see how I'm fixed, boys," said the sheriff. "Got to stick by my constituent or he'll howl."
"We're in no hurry, Jim. Just drove into town to look around a little."
"I'll take him now," said Mrs. Jim, as she came from the kitchen drying her hands on her apron.