"We gotta be careful," cautioned Tom Driver, the local justice of the
peace.
"Careful is our middle name," Rafe Tuckleton said reassuringly.
"I know, I know," persisted Driver. "But you can't fool all the people
all----"
"Abe Lincoln said it first," Felix Craft interrupted impatiently. "But
he didn't live in Crocker County."
"Or he wouldn't have said it, huh?" flung in Tip O'Gorman. "Don't you
fool yourself, Crafty. Tom's right. Human nature don't change any."
"I s'pose you mean give the people a square deal then," sneered Felix.
"If he does, he's crazy," said a lanky citizen named Shindle.
O'Gorman grinned a wide Irish smile. "No, I ain't crazy, but we'll
give 'em a square deal alla same."
"He is crazy," declared lank Shindle.
"A square deal," repeated O'Gorman. "A square deal--for us."
"I thought so," nodded plump Sam Larder, speaking for the first time
since the beginning of the discussion. "A square deal--for us. Let's
hear it, Tip."
O'Gorman sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. "When a dog is
hungry it ain't sensible to feed him a whole juicy steak. He'll gobble
it down an' come pesterin' round for more in five minutes. But give
him a bone and he'll gnaw and gnaw and be a satisfied dog for quite a
long while."
"What kind of a bone were you figuring on giving our dog?" inquired Tom
Driver.
"Sheriff." Thus Tip O'Gorman with finality.
Felix Craft shook a decided head.
"Guess again. Too much meat on that bone."
"Not if it's the right kind of meat," said O'Gorman blandly.
"Stop walking in the water," grunted the impatient Felix. "Say it
right out."
"A sheriff with a ring in his nose," explained O'Gorman.
"A weak sister, huh?" put in Tom Driver.
"Or words to that effect," smiled O'Gorman. "Can't you see how it is,
gents? To shove our ticket through we gotta give 'em one good man. If
we don't, the four legislators are a stand-off. We may elect them. We
may elect our three justices, county clerk and coroner. You can't tell
what will happen to them. Folks will scratch their heads this election
and they'll vote their own way. Take my word for it. And when it
comes to sheriff, folks are gonna do more than scratch their heads.
They're gonna think--hard. That's why we gotta give 'em a good man."
"One of themselves, for instance?" said plump Sam Larder, locking his
hands over his paunch.
"Sure," O'Gorman drawled. "Do that. Give 'em somebody they trust and
like for sheriff an' they'll be so busy thinkin' about electin' him
that the rest of the ticket will slide in like a greased pig through a
busted fence."
"To tell the truth. I'd more than half-promised the job to Jack
Murray," remarked Rafe Tuckleton, incidentally wondering why Jack had
not yet turned up at the meeting. "He should have been here an hour
ago."
"You half-promised it to Jack Murray, huh?" exclaimed the lank citizen
Shindle. "Lemme tell you that I was a damsight more than half-counting
on that job myself."
"Neither of your totals is the right answer, Skinny," explained
O'Gorman pleasantly. "Nominatin' either you or Jack would gorm up the
whole ticket."
"Aw, the party is strong enough to elect anybody!" protested Felix
Craft.
"Not this year," contradicted O'Gorman. "You ain't been round like I
have, Felix. I tell you I know. Gents, if we go ahead and nominate
either Skinny Shindle or Jack Murray, we'll all have to go to work."
"Who you got in mind?" queried Rafe Tuckleton.
"Bill Wingo."
Dead silence for a space. Then Rafe Tuckleton looked at Sam Larder and
whistled lowly. Sam's eyes switched to Tip.
"I don't see the connection," said Sam Larder.
"Me either," concurred Rafe.
"I should say not," Shindle declared loudly.
"I'll tell you," said Tip O'Gorman, beaming impartially upon the
assemblage. "Take Skinny Shindle. He----"
"Aw right, take me!" burst out the gentleman in question. "What about
me! What----"
"Easy, easy," cautioned Tip O'Gorman, his smile a trifle fixed. "I
ain't deaf in either ear, and besides ain't we all li'l friends
together?"
"But you said----" Skinny tried again.
"I ain't said it yet," interrupted Tip, "but I'm going to--gimme a
chance. It won't hurt. It's only the truth. Take Skinny and look at
him. He buys scrip at three times the discount anybody else does, and
there was a lot of talk about that beef contract the agent gave him."
"What of it? Folks don't have to bring scrip to me if they don't
wanna, and suppose there was chatter about the contract. It's the
government's funeral."
"It came near being the agent's," slipped in Sam Larder, with a
reminiscent grin. "Some of them feather dusters like to chased him off
the reservation when they saw the kind of cattle he gave 'em. I saw
'em. They were thinner than Skinny. No exaggeration. Absolutely."
"Well, that's all right, too," said Skinny. "A feller's got to make
money somehow. Who ever heard of giving a Injun the best of it? Not
in Crocker County, anyway."
"That's all right again, too," declared Tip. "But that last deal with
the agent was a li'l too raw. Taking that with your prices for scrip,
Skinny, has made a heap of talk. You ain't a popular idol, Skinny, not
by any means."
"Damn my popularity!" snarled the excellent Skinny. "I wanna be
sheriff."
"Like the baby wants the soap," said Tip. "Well, you'll never be happy
then, because you'll never get it."
"Lookit here, Tip----"
"You lookit here, Skinny," swiftly interjected Rafe Tuckleton. "Is
this campaign your own private affair, or is it the party's?"
"The party's, I guess," Skinny reluctantly admitted. "But I want my
share of it."
"You can have your share without being sheriff," Rafe told him.
"You'll be taken care of, don't fret. This here's a case of united we
stand, divided we tumble. Suppose any li'l thing upsets our plans, and
our ticket don't go through? What then? What happens? For one thing
you won't get the contract for furnishing the lumber for the new jail
and town hall that's gonna be built next year. And for another, that
land deal you and I put through last month will be investigated. How'd
we like that, huh?"
"Rafe's right," said Tom Driver. "This is no time for taking any
chances. It ain't a presidential year, and you can gamble there ain't
gonna be a thing to take folks' eyes off the county politics. We've
all gotta give up something for the sake of the party."
"I don't notice you givin' up anything," snapped the disgruntled
Skinny. "I seem to be the only one that loses."
"And Jack Murray," supplemented Rafe Tuckleton. "Hell's bells, Skinny,
why didn't you say something sooner? To-night's the first I ever heard
you even wanted an office. That's why I told Jack he could have it.
He's a good man, but if I'd known----"
"What difference does that make?" interrupted Skinny, bitterly. "You
couldn't give me the nomination anyway."
"You could have had another office--say county clerk."
"Wouldn't take it on a bet--not enough opportunity. Aw hell, it's a
dead horse! Let it go, Rafe. Tip, you've had a lot to say about me,
now let's hear what you got against Jack Murray."
"Yep," said Rafe Tuckleton, "let's have it. I'll have to give Jack
some reason for going back on him, and I don't see exactly----" He did
not complete the sentence.
"Speaking personal," observed Tip, again on the broad grin, "I ain't
got a thing against Jack. Him and me get along fine. But when Jack
was first deputy two years ago he managed to kill four men one time and
another."
"That was in the line of duty," said Rafe. "They all resisted arrest."
Tip O'Gorman nodded. "I ain't denying it. And we've got Jack's word
for it besides; but the four men all had friends, and when, as you
know, each and every one of 'em turned out to be more or less innocent,
why the friends got to talking round and saying Jack was too previous.
Ain't you heard anything a-tall?"
"I've heard it said he was a _leetle_ quicker than he maybe needed to
be," conceded Rafe. "But folks always talk more or less about a
killing. It didn't strike me there was enough in it to actually keep
Jack from being elected."
"There is. They're only talking now, but nominate Jack and they'll
begin to yell."
"You must have been mighty busy these last few weeks, Tip," sneered
Skinny.
"I have," declared Tip. "Seems like I've talked with every voter in
the county. I've gone over the whole field with a finetooth comb, and
I tell you, gents, the bone for our dog is Bill Wingo. Most everybody
likes Bill. He's a damsight more popular than the opposition
candidate. Bill will get a lot of the other feller's votes, but if we
put up anybody else the other feller will get a lot of ours--and so
will the rest of his ticket."
Tip O'Gorman sat back in his chair and eyed his friends. It was
obvious that the friends were of two minds. Rafe Tuckleton, his
fingers drumming on the table, stared soberly at the floor.
"Are you sure, Tip," inquired Larder suddenly, "that Bill Wingo is the
breed of horse that will _always_ drink when you lead him to water?"
Tip O'Gorman nodded his guarantee of Mr. Wingo's pliability of
character. "Bill is too easy-going and good-natured to do anything
else."
"I'd always had an idea he was a good deal of a man," said Sam Larder.
"Oh, he'll stand the acid," Tip said. "He'll go after anybody he
thinks he oughta go after; but if we can't manage to give him the right
kind of thoughts we're no good."
"You needn't start losing flesh, Sam," slipped in Tom Driver. "Bill
would never go back on his friends. H's just a big overgrown kid,
that's all."
Rafe Tuckleton leaned back in his chair and stared dubiously at Tip
O'Gorman. "All right for Bill, but how about Tom Walton?"
"I'll bite," Tip averred blandly. "How about him?"
"Nothing, oh, nothing a-tall. Only Tom Walton has been one too many
round here for a long time."
"He does talk too much," admitted Tom Driver, his bright little eyes,
like those of an alert bird, fixed on Rafe Tuckleton.
"He's a very suspicious man," said the latter. "He like to broke Simon
Reelfoot's neck last week over a horse of his he said Simon rustled."
"Serve Simon right," said Tip promptly. "Simon's a polecat. Always
was. Felt like breaking his neck more than once myself. Good for
Walton."
"But Simon's one of our crowd," Rafe reminded him, "and he's been
mighty useful. We gotta consider his feelings."
"Oh, damn his feelings. The old screw ain't got any right to feelings."
"Yes, but there wasn't any real actual proof about the horse--only some
tracks in Simon's corral that Walton thought he recognized."
Tip quirked a quizzical mouth. "Between us, Rafe, what did Simon do
with the horse?"
"Sold him to a prospector who was leaving the country. So it couldn't
be traced."
"Good horse was it?"
"It was that chestnut young Hazel rides."
"Hazel's own pony? Lord! Man alive, Simon is worse'n a polecat. He's
a whole family of them. Why couldn't he have rustled some other horse?"
"I ain't Simon, so I can't tell you," said Rafe dryly. "But if you
don't want anything done on Simon's account, how about this: yesterday
one of my boys was shot at while he happened to be doing a li'l
business on the Walton range."
"What did your boy happen to be doing?" smiled Tip.