The sheriff scratched his chin. "I disremember him. Canning? Canning? Come to think of it, I do remember him. Kind of a small man with washed- out eyes. Always with a notebook on his knee. I got sick of answering all that gent's questions, I recollect. Yep, he was along when I took the Garrison boys, but that little party didn't amount to much."
"He thought it did," said Terry fervently. "Said it was the bravest, coolest-headed, cunningest piece of work he'd ever seen done. Perhaps you'll tell me some of the other things—the things you count big?"
"Oh, I ain't done nothing much, come to think of it. All pretty simple, they looked to me, when I was doing them. Besides, I ain't much of a hand at talk!"
"Ah," said Terry, "you'd talk well enough to suit me, sheriff!"
The sheriff had found a listener after his own heart.
"They ain't nothing but a campfire that gives a good light to see a story
by—the kind of stories I got to tell," he declared. "Some of these days
I'll take you along with me on a trail, son, if you'd like—and most like
I'll talk your arm off at night beside the fire. Like to come?"
"Like to?" cried Terry. "I'd be the happiest man in the mountains!"
"Would you, now? Well, Colby, you and me might hit it off pretty well. I've heard tell you ain't half bad with a rifle and pretty slick with a revolver, too."
"I practice hard," said Terry frankly. "I love guns."
"Good things to love, and good things to hate, too," philosophized the sheriff. "But all right in their own place, which ain't none too big, these days. The old times is gone when a man went out into the world with a hoss under him, and a pair of Colts strapped to his waist, and made his own way. Them days is gone, and our younger boys is going to pot!"