Then, too, Beasley had so many things to occupy his busy brain. His trade was one that required much scheming, a matter in which he reveled at all times. Problems of self-interest were his salt of life, and their accurate solution brought him as near earthly happiness as well could be.
Curiously enough problems were always coming his way. He chanced upon one that morning while busy in his storeroom, his attention divided between pricing and stacking new dry goods and smashing flies on the back of his superheated neck. And it served him with food for thought for the rest of the day.
It took him quite unawares, and for that very reason gave him ample satisfaction. He was bending over a pile of rolls of fabric when a voice suddenly hailed him from the doorway.
“Are you the proprietor of the livery stables?”
He turned about with a start. Such a question in that camp seemed superfluous. It was absurd. He looked up, and his astonished eyes fell upon the vision of an extremely well-dressed, refined-looking woman whom he judged to be anything over fifty. But what held his attention most was the lean, emaciated face and penetrating eyes. There was something of the witch about it, as there was about the bowed figure. But more than all she was a stranger.
He admitted the impeachment in the midst of his astonishment with an abruptness equal to her own.
“Sure,” he said, and waited.
“Where will I find the sheriff of this place?”
Beasley’s eyes opened wider.
“Guess ther’ ain’t no sheriff in this camp.”