“But jist suppose we refuse to give up our guns?”
“That,” said the sheriff calmly, “would be jist too damn’ bad.”
“Oh—” softly—“and if I should happen to want to leave town, you’d give me back my gun?”
“Jist like the sign says, Pete.”
“All right; here’s mine. Take ’em off, boys. We don’t need ’em—now.”
The sheriff looked over the guns as he deposited them about his person; he walked out, swinging the hammer in his hand.
“Don’t that beat hell?” laughed Pete.
“I’ll betcha somebody told him somethin’,” said a cowboy.
“I don’t like the idea of a moth eaten old sidewinder takin’ my gun away,” complained a cowboy who was new to the country. “We’d ’a’ had some fun, if we’d refused.”
“You’ve got a sweet idea of fun,” growled Pete. “That moth eaten old sidewinder is jist thirty-two years old, and if we hadn’t turned them guns over to him he’d jist about ruined the whole gang of us with his pet Winchester. When you see ‘By order of Buck Brady,’ you better read the upper part of it and act accordingly.”