I
Along about '96 Sulphur Springs had become several kinds of a bad town.
From being a small liquoring-up place for cattlemen it had taken on
successively the character of a land-office, a lumber-camp, and a
coal-mine.
As a cow town it had been hardly more than a hamlet. As a mining center
it rose to the dignity of possessing (as Judge Pulfoot was accustomed to
boast) nearly two thousand souls, not counting Mexicans and Navajos. It
lay in the hot hollows between pinyon-spotted hills, but within sight
spread the grassy slopes of the secondary mountains over whose tops the
snow-lined peaks of the Continental Divide loomed in stern majesty.
The herders still carried Winchesters on their saddles and revolvers
strung to their belts, and each of them strove to keep up cowboy
traditions by unloading his weapon on the slightest provocation. The
gamblers also sustained the conventions of their profession by killing
one another now and again, and the average citizen regarded these
activities with a certain approval, for they all denoted a "live town."
"The boys need diversion," said the mayor, "and so long as they confine
their celebrations to such hours as will not disturb the children and
women--at least, the domestic kind of women--I won't complain."
And really, it is gratifying to record that very few desirable citizens
were shot. Sulphur continued to thrive, to glow in the annals of
mountain chivalry, until by some chance old Tom Hornaby of Wire Grass
was elected Senator. That victory marked the beginning of the decline of
Sulphur.
Hornaby was Pulfoot's candidate, and the judge took a paternal pride in
him. He even went up to the capital to see him sworn in, and was there,
unfortunately, when the humorous member from Lode alluded to Hornaby as
"my esteemed colleague from 'Brimstone' Center, where even the judges
tote guns and the children chew dynamite"--and what was still more
disturbing, he was again in the capital when the news came of the
shooting and robbing of a couple of coal-miners, the details of which
filled the city papers with sarcastic allusions to "Tom Hornaby's live
town on The Stinking Water."
Hornaby, being a heavy owner of land in and about Sulphur, was very
properly furious, and Judge Pulfoot--deeply grieved--was, indeed, on the
instant, converted. A great light fell about him. He perceived his home
town as it was--or at least he got a glimpse of it as it appeared to the
timid souls of civilized men. He cowered before Hornaby.
"Tom, you're right," he sadly agreed. "The old town needs cleaning up.
It sure is disgraceful."
Hornaby buttered no parsnips. "You go right back," said he, "and kick
out that bonehead marshal of yours and put a full-sized man into his
place, a man that will cut that gun-play out and distribute a few of
those plug-uglies over the landscape. What chance have I got in this
Legislature as the 'Senator from Brimstone Center'? I'll never get shet
of that fool tag whilst I'm up here."
"You certainly have a right to be sore," the judge admitted. "But it
ain't no boy's job, cleaning up our little burg. It's going to be good,
stiff work. I don't know who to put into it."
"I do."
"Who?"
"My foreman, Ed Kelley."
"I don't know him."
"Well, I do. He's only been with me a few months, but I've tried him and
he's all right. He's been all over the West, knows the greasers and
Injuns, and can take care of himself anywhere. The man don't live that
can scare him. You notice his eyes! He's got a glare like the muzzle of
a silver-plated double-barrel shotgun. He don't know what fear is. I've
seen him in action, and I know."