“Yuh can keep that eight thousand under cover a while, can’tcha, Lee?”
“For a while, Tex—sure thing.”
“Thank yuh, Lee. Adios.”
Tex sauntered out and the lawyer looked after him, a crooked smile on his lips, feeling that he and Tex Alden understood each other perfectly. He could look from his window and see Tex get his horse at the livery-stable and ride away.
The sheriff did not go back to the Oasis Saloon that afternoon. The whole incident wasn’t quite clear in his mind. He had a lump on his forehead, where he hit the floor, and one shin was skinned from the chair, but he wasn’t quite sure just who was to blame for it all. Anyway, he wasn’t sure that they had tin-canned the minister’s horse with Louie Sing’s copper can.
He wished Al Porter, his deputy, were there. Al knew how to get along with those fellows from the AK. But Al had gone to Encinas that afternoon to see his girl, and wouldn’t be back until late that night, even if he were fortunate enough to catch a freight train. Encinas was twelve miles east of Blue Wells.
The election of Scotty Olson had been more or less of a joke. There had been quite a lot of mud-slinging between the Republican and Democrat candidates, and a bunch of the boys got together and induced Scotty to run independently. And while the two favorites in the race, to use a racing parlance, tried to cut each other down in the stretch, Scotty, hardly knowing what it was all about, won the election.
He had appointed Al Porter, a former deputy sheriff, to act as his deputy and mentor, and the office was really run by Al, much to the amusement of every one concerned, except Scotty, who was satisfied that he was making a big reputation for himself.
Oyster Shell, Johnny Grant and Eskimo Swensen continued to make merry at the Oasis, mostly at the expense of the bartender, who writhed under punishment but grinned in spite of it, because he owned an interest in the Oasis, with Neal, and the boys of the AK were good patrons.
It was after dark when Johnny Grant decided that it was time to go back to the ranch. He announced the fact, and his two companions suddenly found themselves of the same notion.