Oyster’s face twitched convulsively and his eyes opened.
“Where is the haberdasher’s?” asked Jim Legg.
The three cowboys stared owlishly at each other.
“Oh, them folks,” Johnny Grant squinted thoughtfully.
“Must ’a’ been that German fambly that nested in down on the forks of Rio Creek,” said Eskimo. “They’re gone. Let’s go buy somethin’ to make a real, regular cowboy out of this here, now, Jimmy Limbs.”
The sheriff and deputy came back to Blue Wells in bad humor. They stabled their horses and went to the office. Scotty Olson leaned against the doorway and looked across the street at the horses tied at the Oasis hitch-rack. The three at the far end were from the AK; a tall roan, a sorrel and a gray.
Al Porter sagged back in a chair, placed his feet on top of the desk and drew his sombrero down over his eyes.
“If I was you I’d go over to the Oasis and have a talk with them AK scoundrels,” he told Scotty. “By ——, if I was sheriff of this county I’d shore impress upon ’em that this is a dignified office. I’d make it dignified, y’betcha.”
Scotty turned troubled eyes upon his deputy.
“You would, like ——! You’ll sag jist as quick as anybody, when it comes to trouble. All the way back from the AK you’ve told me what you’d do. Talk! Yeah, you can talk, Al. If talkin’ was worth a ——, you’d be President of the U. S. A.”