ust.

Quickly the passengers all trooped to the cars and five minutes
later the train was again in motion.

All the passengers wanted to shake hands with Tom and Larry, and
for several minutes the boys were at the mercy of their
well-meaning admirers. Again the sheriff came to their rescue.

"Go back to your own cars," he commanded. "The boys want to be
left alone."

But the people gave no sign of heeding his words.

"Well, if you won't go at the asking, I'll make you go," he
continued, and seizing the person nearest him, the sheriff turned
him round and gave him a shove along the aisle of the car.

After three or four of the passengers had been pushed none too
gently away, the others began to leave of their own accord, and the
two brothers were able to make their escape.

"If it keeps on the way it has started, we're likely to have a
lively summer," remarked Larry when he was again back in his seat.

"I hope they don't come so quick for me," exclaimed Hans. And his
tone was so plaintive that the others could not help but laugh.

"You'll either have to get some nerve or else stick mighty close to
your friends here," declared the sheriff, who had remained to talk
with the boys who had shown such pluck.

"Maybe I'll go back to Germany," sighed Hans.

"Oh, you'll get used to this part of the world after a while.
Where are you going?"

"Tolopah."

"Well, that ain't the most refined place in the world," chuckled
the man of the law, "but I don't believe you'll get as bad as what
you got."

Pondering over this none too reassuring remark, Hans lapsed into
silence, while Tom and Larry plied the sheriff with questions about
life on the ranches and the antics of the cowboys.

As evening came on the boys grew restive. Their train was due at
Tolopah at nine the next morning, and despite the fact that it was
rushing along at the rate of forty miles an hour, it seemed to them
to be scarcely moving. They had already passed two nights and two
days on the train and the thought of putting another night in the
berth, especially as it was very hot, seemed impossible, making
them fretful and cross.

"Who is he?" asked Larry of the conductor, after the sheriff had
left the train.

"What, you never heard of Sam Jenks, sheriff of Pawnee County?"

"We come from Ohio," said Tom, as though apologizing for their
ignorance.

"That accounts for it. If you lived between the Mississippi and El
Paso you wouldn't ask such