“How’re you feeling now?” he asked.
Mr. Watt gulped a mouthful of air but made no attempt to answer. He did not even open his eyes. He paid no attention to the other’s departure.
Young Dan found the hotel without difficulty and entered the office fully equipped.
“Will you kindly tell me the way to the nearest sheriff?” he asked of the man at the desk.
“The nearest sheriff?” repeated the hotel-keeper. “Do I get you, young feller? Ye’re askin’ the way to the nearest sheriff?”
There were four other men in that dreary little office of varnished brown woodwork, mangey mooseheads and crockery cuspidors. These all stared curiously at the young trapper and shifted their positions in their chairs. The hotel-keeper leaned far over his little counter.
“D’ye want to give yerself up?” he added, with a rude attempt at wit.
“I have asked you a simple and civil question,” said Young Dan in his quietest voice. “If you don’t understand simple questions here and don’t answer civil ones, then I’ll ask somewhere else. What about it?”
The hotel-keeper and his chaired patrons exchanged glances.
“Sure, sure,” said the former, hurriedly. “We ain’t got a sheriff in this town, but we got a fust-class depity-sheriff by the name of Archie Wallace. Maybe ye’ve heared of him; an’ maybe he kin do yer business for yer as well as the full-blowed high sheriff of the county. What was it you said you wanted to see him about?”