DIPLOMACY IN DODGE
It was a subject of common regret when Mr. Masterson, as Sheriff of
Ford, decided to resign. He had shown himself equipped for the position,
being by nature cool and just and honest, and disposed to accuracy in
all things, especially in his shooting. It was those laws prohibitive of
the sale of strong drink throughout the State of Kansas that prompted
the resignation of Mr. Masterson.
“The rounding up of horse thieves and hold-ups, Bob,” observed Mr.
Masterson to Mr. Wright, “is legitimate work. And I don’t mind burning a
little powder with them if such should be their notion. But I draw the
line at pulling on a gentleman, and dictating water as a beverage.”
Whereupon Mr. Masterson laid down his office, and Mr. Wright and Mr.
Short and Mr. Kelly and Mr. Trask and Mr. Tighlman and Cimarron Bill
sorrowfully gathered at the Wright House and gave a dinner in his honor.
Following the dinner, Mr. Masterson translated himself to Arizona, while
Dodge relieved its feelings with the circulation of a document which
read:
“We, the undersigned, agree to pay the sums set opposite our
names to the widow and orphans of the gent who first informs on
a saloonkeeper.”
The white American is a mammal of unusual sort. He doesn’t mind when his
officers of government merely rob him, or do no more than just saddle
and ride him in favour of some pillaging monopoly. But the moment those
officers undertake to tell him what he shall drink and when he shall
drink it, he goes on the warpath. Thus was it with the ebullient folk of
Dodge on the dry occasion of Prohibition. The paper adverted to gained
many signatures, and promised a fortune to those mourning ones it so
feelingly described.
When Mr. Masterson laid down his regalia as Sheriff and the public
realised that he had pulled his six-shooters, officially, for the last
time, a sense of loss filled the bosoms of those who liked a peaceful
life. There was another brood which felt the better pleased. Certain
dissolute ones, who arrive at ruddiest blossom in a half-baked Western
camp, made no secret of their satisfaction. Withal, they despised Mr.
Masterson for the certainty of his pistol practise, and that tacit
brevity wherewith he set his guns to work.
Perhaps of those who rejoiced over the going of Mr. Masterson, a leading
name was that of Bear Creek Johnson. Certainly, Bear Creek jubilated
with a greater degree of noise than did the others. Having money at the
time, Bear Creek came forth upon what he meant should be a record spree.
The joyful Bear Creek was fated to meet with check. He had attained to
the first stages of that picnic which he planned, “jest beginnin’ to
onbuckle,” as he himself expressed it, when he was addressed upon the
subject by Mr. Wright. The latter was standing in the doorway of his
store, and halted Bear Creek, whooping up the street. Mr. Wright owned a
past wherein rifle smoke and courage were equally commingled to make an
honoured whole. Aware of these credits to the fame of Mr. Wright, Bear
Creek ceased whooping to hear what he might say. As Bear Creek paused,
Mr. Wright from the doorway bent upon him a somber glance.
“I only wanted to say, Bear Creek,” observed Mr. Wright, “that if I were
you I wouldn’t tire the town with any ill-timed gayety. If the old
vigilance committee _should_ come together, and if it _should_ decide to
clean up the camp, the fact that you owe me money wouldn’t save you. I
should never let private interests interfere with my duty to the town,
nor a lust for gain keep me from voting to hang a criminal. It would be
no help to him that I happened to be his creditor.”
This rather long oration threw cold water upon the high spirits of Bear
Creek Johnson. He whooped no more, and at the close of Mr. Wright’s
remarks returned to his accustomed table in the Alamo, where he devoted
the balance of the evening to a sullen consumption of rum.
Several months elapsed, and Dodge had felt no ill effects from
Prohibition. Whiskey was obtainable at usual prices in the Alamo, the
Alhambra, the Long Branch, the Dance Hall, and what other haunts made a
feature of liquid inspiration. Dodge was satisfied. Dodge was practical
and never complained of any law until it was enforced. Since such had
not been the case with those statutes of prohibition, Dodge was content.
The herds as aforetime came up from Texas in the fall; as aforetime the
cowboys mirthfully divided their equal money between whiskey, monte and
quadrilles. The folk of Dodge thereat were pleased. No one, official,
had come to molest them or make them afraid, and a first resentful
interest in prohibition was dying down.
This condition of calm persisted undisturbed until one afternoon when
the telegraph operator came over to the Alhambra, pale and shaken,
bearing a yellow message. The message told how the Attorney General, and
the President of the Prohibition League were to be in Dodge next day,
with a fell purpose of making desolate that jocund hamlet by an
enforcement of the laws. The visitors would dismantle Dodge of its
impudent defiance; they would destroy it with affidavits, plow and sow
its site with salt in the guise of warrants of arrest. When they were
finished, the Alhambra, the Long Branch, the Alamo, the Dance Hall and
kindred kindly emporiums would be as springs that had run dry, while,
captives in the town’s calaboose, their proprietors wore irons and
languished. To add insult to injury, those exalted ones promised that
when they had cleansed Dodge and placed it upon a rumless footing, they
would address what citizens were not in jail and strive to show them the
error of their sodden ways and teach them to lead a happier and a
soberer life.
[Illustration: In Disapproval of Its Drinks.]
When Mr. Masterson withdrew to Arizona, he did not expect to soon return
to Dodge. He found, however, that despite Tombstone and its pleasures he
dragged a sense of loneliness about, and oft caught himself wondering
what Mr. Wright and Mr. Kelly and Mr. Short and the rest of the boys
were doing. At last, giving as excuse, that he ought to put a wire fence
about a sand-blown stretch of desert that was his and which lay
blistering on the south side of the Arkansas in the near vicinity of
Dodge, he resolved upon a visit. He would remain a fortnight. It would
be a vacation—he hadn’t had one since the Black Kettle campaign—and
doubtless serve to wear away the edge of those regrets which preyed upon
him when now he no longer conserved the peace of Dodge with a Colt’s-45.
There comes a joy with office holding, even when the office is one
attractive of invidious lead, and in the newness of laying down that
post of Sheriff, Mr. Masterson should not be criticised because the
ghost of an ache shot now and then across his soul.
The first day of Mr. Masterson’s return was devoted to a renewal of old
ties—a bit parched, with ten months of Arizona. The second day, Mr.
Masterson invested in wandering up and down and indulging himself in a
tender survey of old landmarks. Here was the sign-post against which he
steadied himself when he winged that obstreperous youth from the
C-bar-K, who had fired his six-shooter into the Alhambra in disapproval
of Mr. Kelly’s wares. It was a good shot; for the one resentful of
Alhambra whiskey was fully one hundred yards away and on the run. Later,
the C-bar-K boy admitted that the Alhambra whiskey was not so bad, and
his slam-bang denunciation of it uncalled for. At that, Mr. Masterson,
first paying a doctor to dig his lead from the boy’s shoulder, gave him
his freedom again.
“If Kell’s whiskey had been really bad,” said Mr. Masterson, “I would
have been the last to interfere with the resentment of a gentleman who
had suffered from it. But I was familiar with the brand, and knew,
therefore, how that cowboy unlimbered in merest wantonness. Under such
conditions, I could not, and do my duty, permit him to go unrebuked.”
Half a block further, and Mr. Masterson stood in front of the First
National Bank. Mr. Masterson recalled this arena of finance as the place
wherein he borrowed the shotgun with which he cooled the ardour of Mr.
Bowman when that warrior made the long journey from Trinidad with the
gallant purpose, announced widely in advance, of shooting up the town.
Looking into the double muzzle of the 10-gauge, the doughty one from
Trinidad saw that which changed his plans. Turning his hardware over to
Mr. Masterson, he took a drink in amity with that hard-working officer,
and then embarked upon a festival, conducted with a scrupulous regard
for the general peace, which lasted four full days.
Across from the bank was the warehouse, the wooden walls of which
displayed the furrows ploughed by Mr. Masterson’s bullets on the day
when he fought the three gentleman from Missouri. They were
weather-stained, those furrows, with the rains that had intervened. Mr.
Masterson being a sentimentalist sighed over his trademarks, and thought
of those pleasant times when they were fresh. Fifty yards beyond stood
the little hotel where the dead were carried. It was a good hotel, and
in that hour celebrated for its bar; remembering which, Mr. Masterson
repaired thither in the name of thirst.
Mr. Masterson was leaning on the counter, and telling the proprietor
that the lustre of his whiskey had been in no sort dimmed, when the
word—just then delivered by the wires—reached him of that proposed
invasion in the cause of prohibition. It was Mr. Wright who bore the
tidings, and the face of that merchant prince showed grave.
“Well,” said Mr. Masterson, in tones of relief, “you see, Bob, that I
was right when I resigned. I’d be in a box now if I were Sheriff.”
“What is your idea of a course?” asked Mr. Wright. “It stands to reason
that the camp can’t go dry; at the same time I wouldn’t want to see it
meander into trouble.”
It was thought wise by Mr. Wright, after exhaustively conferring with
Mr. Masterson, to call a meeting of the male inhabitants of Dodge. There
might be discovered in a multitude of counsel some pathway that would
lead them out of this law-trap, while permitting them to drink.
Mr. Wright presided at the meeting, which was large. There were
speeches, some for peace and some for war, but none which opened any
gate. Dodge was where it started, hostile, but undecided. Somebody
called on Mr. Masterson; what would he suggest? Mr. Masterson, being no
orator and fluent only with a gun, tried to escape. However, over-urged
by Mr. Wright, he spake as follows:
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Masterson, “I was so recently your Sheriff that
the habit of upholding law and maintaining order is still strong upon
me, and it may be that, thus crippled, I am but ill qualified to judge
of the wisdom of ones who have counseled killing and scalping these
prohibition people who will favour Dodge to-morrow afternoon. My
impression, however, is that such action, while perhaps natural under
the circumstances, would be grossly premature. It would bring down the
State upon us, and against such odds even Dodge might not sustain
herself. All things considered, my advice is this: Close every saloon an
hour before our visitors arrive, and keep them closed while they remain.
Every man—for there would be no sense in enduring hardships
uselessly—should provide himself in advance with say a gallon. The
saloons closed, our visitors would be powerless. What a man doesn’t see
he doesn’t know; and those emissaries of a tyrannous prohibition would
be unable to make oath. In the near finish, they would leave. Once they
had departed, Dodge could again go forward on its liberty-loving way.
Those are my notions, gentlemen; and above all I urge that nothing like
violence be indulged in. Let our visitors enter and depart in peace. Do
not put it within their power to say that Dodge was not a haven of
peace. You must remember that not alone your liberty but your credit is
at stake, and play a quiet hand according.”
While Mr. Wright and that conservative contingent which he represented
approved the counsel of Mr. Masterson, there were others who condemned
it. At the head of these latter was the turbulent Bear Creek Johnson.
After the meeting had adjourned, that riot-urging individual branded the
words of Mr. Masterson as pusillanimous. For himself, the least that Bear
Creek would consent to was the roping up of the visitors the moment they
appeared. They were to be dragged at the hocks of a brace of cow-ponies
until such time as they renounced their iniquitous mission, and promised
respect to Dodge’s appetites and needs.
“As for that Masterson party,” said the bitter Bear Creek, who being
five drinks ahead was pot-valiant, “what’s he got to do with the play?
He got cold feet an’ quit ten months ago. Now he allows he’ll come
buttin’ in an’ tell people what kyards to draw, an’ how to fill an’ bet
their hands. Some gent ought to wallop a gun over his head. An’ if some
gent don’t, I sort o’ nacherally reckon I’ll about do the trick myse’f.”
Since Bear Creek Johnson reserved these views for souls who were in
sympathy therewith, meanwhile concealing the same from such as Mr.
Masterson and Mr. Wright, there arose no one to contradict him. Made
bold by silent acquiescence, and exalted of further drinks, Bear Creek
drew about him an outcast coterie in the rear room of Mr. Webster’s
Alamo. It was there, with Bear Creek to take the lead, they laid their
heads together for the day to come.
There be men on earth who are ever ready for trouble that, specifically,
isn’t trouble of their own. They delight in dancing when others pay the
fiddler. Numbers of such gathered with the radical Bear Creek; and being
gathered, he and they pooled their wicked wits in devising fardels for
those expected enemies.
When, next day, our executives of prohibition came into Dodge, they were
amazed, while scarcely gratified, to find every rum shop locked up fast
and tight. The Dance Hall, the Alhambra, the Long Branch and the Alamo,
acting on the hint of Mr. Masterson, had closed their doors, and not a
drink of whiskey, not even for rattlesnake-bite, could have been bought
from one end of the street to the other. Not that this paucity of
rum-selling seemed to bear heavily upon the community. There were never
so many gentlemen of Dodge whom one might describe as wholly and
successfully drunk. The boardwalks were thronged with their staggering
ranks, as the visitors made a tour of the place.
The visitors were pompous, well-fed men of middle age; and while they
said they had come to perform a duty, one skilled in man-reading might
have told at a glance that their great purpose was rather to tickle
vanity, and demonstrate how unsparing would be their spirit when the
question became one of moral duty.
When the duo first appeared their faces wore a ruddy, arrogant hue. As
they went about upon that tour of inspection they began to pale. There
was something in the lowering eye of what fragment of the public looked
to the leadership of Bear Creek Johnson, to whiten them.
Pale as linen three times bleached, following fifteen minutes spent
about the streets, the visitors—their strutting pomposity visibly
reduced—made a shortest wake to Gallon’s, being the hostelry they
designed to honour with their custom. Gallon’s was a boarding-house
distinguished as “Prohibition,” and the visitors proposed to illustrate
it and give it fashion in the estimation of sober men, by bestowing upon
it their patronage. Two hours later, the proprietor would have paid
money to dispense with the advertisement.
Once the invaders were housed, by twos and fives and tens, the
disengaged inhabitants of Dodge began to assemble in front of Gallon’s.
Some came in a temper of curiosity. The band with Bear Creek Johnson,
however, entertained a different feeling. Their taste was for the
strenuous. They set forth this fact with imitations of the yelp of the
coyote. Withal, they were constantly closing up about the refuge of the
visitors, until they stood, a packed and howling mob, with which it was
no more than a question of minutes before ugly action would begin.
Bear Creek Johnson was in the van, fostering and fomenting a sentiment
for violence. The unworthy Bear Creek was not lacking in qualities of
leadership; he realised, as by an instinct, that a mob must have time to
pen before it is put to work. Wherefore, Bear Creek, while cursing and
threatening with the rest, delayed. He paused, as it were, with his
thumb on the angry pulse of the multitude, waiting to seize the moment
psychological.
Hemmed in by four hundred pushing, threatening, cursing, human wolves,
those agents of prohibition whitely sat and shivered. They knew their
peril; also they felt that sense of utter helplessness which will only
come to men when forced to face the brainless fury of a mob. What should
be done? What could be done? In that moment of extremity the proprietor
of the boarding-house, with the fear of death upon him, could think of
nothing beyond sending for Mr. Wright.
To be courier in this hour of strain a girl of twelve was sent out by a
rear door. There was craft in this selection of a messenger. No Western
mob, however bloody of intention, would dream of interfering with a
girl. Besides, Mr. Wright would never refuse a girl’s request.
Mr. Wright might have been as pleased had he not been called upon. To
oppose the insurrectionists was neither a work of pleasure nor of
safety, and the opportunity to thus put himself in feud with a half
regiment of men whose blood was up, and with whom when the smoke of
battle blew aside he must still do business, could not be called a boon.
But the little girl’s lips were blue with terror, and her frightened
eyes showed round and big, as she besought Mr. Wright to save the life
of her father—it was he to be proprietor of Gallon’s—and the lives of
those visiting gentlemen, representative of prohibition. Getting wearily
up from the poker game in which he was employed, Mr. Wright made ready
to go with the little girl.
“You had better come too, Bat,” said Mr. Wright, addressing Mr.
Masterson. “I think you can do more with a Dodge mob than I can. They’ve
seen more of your shooting.”
“Of course I’ll go, Bob,” returned Mr. Masterson, laying down a
reluctant hand in which dwelt a pair of aces—a highly hopeful pair
before the draw!—“of course I’ll go. But it seems hard that I must leave
just when the hands are beginning to run my way. I wish Bear Creek had
put off this uprising another hour. I’d have been a mile on velvet.”
When Mr. Masterson and Mr. Wright arrived at the seat of war, the mob
was more or less impressed and its howls lost half their volume. Mr.
Masterson and Mr. Wright walked through the close-set ranks, and went in
by the front door. No back door for Mr. Masterson and Mr. Wright;
especially under the eyes of ones whom they must presently outface.
“What is your desire, gentlemen?” asked Mr. Masterson, when he and Mr.
Wright found themselves with the beleaguered ones.
“There is a train in an hour and thirty minutes,” replied the Attorney
General. He showed the colour of a sheet, but his upper lip was stiffer
than was that of his companion, which twitched visibly. “Can you put us
aboard?”
“Now I don’t see why not,” returned Mr. Masterson.
“Don’t see why not!” exclaimed the President of the Prohibition League;
“don’t see why not! You hear those murderers outside, and you don’t see
why not!” It should be mentioned in the gentleman’s defence that his
nerves were a-jangle. “Don’t see why not!” he murmured, sinking back as
a deeper roar came from without.
“Don’t let the racket outside disturb you,” said Mr. Masterson in a
reassuring tone. “We’ll manage to get that outfit back in its corral.”
“But do you guarantee our safety?” gasped the other.
“As to that,” returned Mr. Masterson, “you gentlemen understand that I
am not issuing life insurance. What I say is this: Whoever gets you will
have to go over me to make the play.”
Mr. Masterson and Mr. Wright conversed apart. There was no haste; the
mob would confine itself to threats and curses while they remained in
the house.
“Perhaps I’d better give ’em a talk, Bob,” said Mr. Masterson, at the
close of their confab. “There are two things to do. We must get rid of
Bear Creek. And we must let it look like the rest of ’em had taken a
trick. I think I’ll suggest that we make our visitors give us those
temperance speeches. They won’t want to do it; and if we let the boys
sort o’ compel them to be eloquent, they’ll most likely quit satisfied.
If we don’t do something of the kind, it’s my opinion they’ll take a
shot at us before ever we place these shuddering strangers on the
train.”
“Do what you reckon best,” returned Mr. Wright. “I’ll back your game.”
Mr. Masterson opened the front door and, with Mr. Wright, stepped forth.
He considered the mob a moment with a quiet eye, and then raised his
hand as if to invite attention.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “if I talk to you, it’s on your account. The
people inside, in whose honour you’ve assembled, intend to board the
first train for the East.”
“Board nothin’! Let’s swing ’em off!” cried a cowboy from south of the
river. He was carrying his lariat in his hand; as he spoke he whirled
the loop about his head, knocking off the sombreros of those nearest
him. “Let’s swing ’em off!” he shouted.
“I’ll swing you off, if you don’t give that rope a rest!” returned an
irate one, unhatted, and with that he collared the child of cows, and
threw him backward into the press. “Go on, Bat,” said this auxiliary,
having abated the cowboy and his rope; “give us the layout of your
little game.”
“My little game,” continued Mr. Masterson calmly, “is this: I’ve passed
my word that no harm shall come to these people. And for this reason. If
they were even a little injured, the prohibition papers would make
bloody murder of it. Inside of hours, the soldiers from the Fort would
be among us, and the town under martial law. They would be sending you
prairie dogs to bed at nine o’clock, with a provost marshal to tuck you
in; and none of you would like that. I wouldn’t like it myself.”
“Let the soldiers come!” shouted Bear Creek Johnson from the extreme
wing of the mob. Bear Creek had drawn from the whiskey under his belt a
more than normal courage. Moreover, he felt that it was incumbent upon
him to make a stand. Considering those plans he had laid, and which
included driving Mr. Masterson out of town should he have the impudence
to stand in their way, Bear Creek knew that otherwise he would be
disparaged in the estimation of his followers and suffer in his good
repute. He resolved to put forward a bold face, and bully Mr. Masterson.
“Let the soldiers come!” Bear Creek repeated. “We won’t ask Bat
Masterson to give us any help.”
“Is that you, Bear Creek?” observed Mr. Masterson, turning on that
popular idol.
Mr. Masterson stepped off the porch and walked down upon the grass. This
brought Bear Creek clear of the herd. No one, in case Bear Creek became
a target, would be in line of Mr. Masterson’s fire. Bear Creek noticed
this as something sinister.
“I reckon now,” continued Mr. Masterson, still edging in between Bear
Creek and his reserves, “that in case of trouble, you would take
command, and run the soldiers out.” Then, solemnly, while Mr. Wright
from the porch scanned those to the rear of Mr. Masterson for an
earliest hostile sign: “Bear Creek, you’ve been holding forth that
you’re a heap bad, but I, for one, am unconvinced. I understand how you
snuffed out the soldier at Fort Lyons; but I also understand how that
soldier was dead drunk. I’ve likewise heard how you bumped off the party
on the Cimarron; at the same time that party was plumb tender and not
heeled. Wherefore, I decline to regard those incidents as tests. You
must give Dodge a more conclusive proof of gameness before you can
dictate terms to the camp. You’ve got your irons! What do you wear ’em
for?”
As though to point the question, Mr. Masterson’s six-shooter jumped from
its belt, and exploded in the direction of Bear Creek. The big bullet
tore the ground two inches from his right foot. With a screech of
dismay, Bear Creek soared into the air.
Even while Mr. Masterson was talking, Bear Creek Johnson’s fortitude had
been sweating itself away. The catlike creeping in between him and his
constituents had also served to unhinge him. Indeed he was in such frame
that the sudden explosion of Mr. Masterson’s pistol exploded with it his
hysteria. Bear Creek could do nothing but make the shameful screeching
leap described.
Away went his nerves like a second flock of frightened sheep when, just
as he felt the grass again beneath him, there came a second flash, and a
second bullet buried itself in the ground, grazing his left foot. Bear
Creek made another skyward leap, and evolved another horror-bitten
screech to which the first was as a whisper. When he came down, a third
bullet ripped a furrow between his legs.
Bear Creek Johnson had so far recovered possession of himself that at
the third shot he didn’t leap. He ran. The ignoble Bear Creek fled from
the blazing Mr. Masterson with a speed that would have amazed the
antelopes.
“It’s as I thought!” remarked Mr. Masterson, regretfully; “quit like a
dog, and never even reached for his gun!” Then, returning to the public,
which had been vastly interested by those exercises in which Bear Creek
had performed, Mr. Masterson resumed. “As I was saying, when Bear Creek
interrupted me, I’ve given my word to the folks inside that they shall
not meet with injury. But there’s one matter upon which, if you’ll back
me up, I’d like to enter.” At this, certain scowls which wrinkled the
brows of the more defiant, began to abate by the fraction of a shadow.
“These men,” went on Mr. Masterson, “made boasts before they came here
that they would speak on temperance and prohibition. I understand, from
what they now say, that they have given up this design. I don’t like
that. I don’t want them running into the papers with a lie about the
lawlessness of Dodge, and how we wouldn’t permit free speech. If I were
you, I’d have these Ciceros out, cost what it might, and they’d either
make those speeches or give a reason why.”
“You’re dead right, Bat,” cried one enthusiast. “Smoke ’em out! Make ’em
talk! If they’ve got anything ag’inst whiskey, let ’em spit it out. I
don’t owe whiskey a splinter; an’, you bet! these trantlers ain’t goin’
back to Topeka, poisonin’ the public mind, and putting it up that Dodge
wasn’t safe to talk in.”
“Taking the gentleman’s remarks,” observed Mr. Masterson gravely, “as
reflecting the common sentiment, I move you that Mr. Wright be
instructed to go to our visitors and say that we’re waiting with
impatience to hear them on the dual topics of temperance in its moral
aspects, and prohibition as a police regulation of the State. Those in
favour say, Ay!”
There was a thunder-gust of Ays!
“The Ays have it,” confirmed Mr. Masterson. “Bob, will you go inside and
get the muzzles off the orators? When ready, parade ’em before this
enlightened and sympathetic audience, and tell ’em they’ve never had
such a chance to distinguish themselves since the Mexican War.”
Mr. Wright withdrew in submission to instructions. While he was absent,
Mr. Masterson indulged his audience with a few more words, lowering his
voice as though what he said were confidential.
“Mr. Wright,” remarked Mr. Masterson, “will shortly appear with our
visitors. During the exercises, I trust that nothing trenching upon
disturbance will be indulged in. I shall preside; and I need not call
attention to the fact that there are still three cartridges in my gun.
Also, I might add that I don’t always shoot at a party’s moccasins and
miss.”
It was the only thing they could do. With Mr. Masterson and Mr. Wright
to give them courage, and despair to lend them grace, those visiting
ones spake upon whiskey as the Devil’s broth and the hideous evils of
intemperance. All things considered, they made excellent addresses. Not
the best that was in them, perhaps; but what then? Patrick Henry would
have fumbled for a word were he to feel that at any moment an auditor
might step forward and edit a faulty sentence with his Colt’s. It is to
the glory of Dodge, that the orators were broken in upon by nothing more
lethal than applause, while each was made prouder by a whirlwind of
cheers when he closed.
It was evening in the Alhambra. Those prohibition folk were distant by
one hundred safe and healthful miles, and Dodge had returned to the even
tenor of its ways. Suddenly Mr. Wright delivered himself of this
reproof.
“There’s one fault I’ve got to find, Bat; there’s one thing I won’t get
over soon. Why, I ask you, why, when you had him dead to rights, did you
miss that Bear Creek?”
“I know how you feel, Bob,” returned Mr. Masterson in a manner of
self-reproach, “and I despair of framing up an apology that will square
me with Dodge. Why didn’t I down Bear Creek? It will sound
childish”—here Mr. Masterson’s eye took on a twinkle that was sly—“but,
Bob, I’m no longer sheriff; and, between us, I’m afraid I don’t shoot
true in my private capacity.”