amid a chorus of "Good
night, Sheriff!" With him went Martin and half-a-dozen more.

I thought I had come out of the matter fairly well until I spoke to
some of the men standing near. They answered me, it is true, but in
monosyllables, and evidently with unwillingness. In silence I finished
my whisky, feeling that every one was against me for some inexplicable
cause. I resented this and stayed on. In a quarter of an hour the rest
of the crowd had departed, with the exception of Morris and a few of the
same kidney.

When I noticed that these gamblers, outlaws by public opinion, held away
from me, I became indignant. Addressing myself to Morris, I asked:

"Can you tell me, sir, for you seem to be an educated man, what I have
said or done to make you all shun me?"

"I guess so," he answered indifferently. "You took a hand in a game
where you weren't wanted. And you tried to come in without ever having
paid the _ante_, which is not allowed in any game--at least not in any
game played about here."

The allusion seemed plain; I was not only a stranger, but a foreigner;
that must be my offence. With a "Good night, sir; good night,
barkeeper!" I left the room.

The next morning I went as usual to the office. I may have been seated
there about an hour--it was almost eight o'clock--when I heard a knock
at the door.

"Come in," I said, swinging round in the American chair, to find myself
face to face with Sheriff Johnson.

"Why, Sheriff, come in!" I exclaimed cheerfully, for I was relieved
at seeing him, and so realized more clearly than ever that the
unpleasantness of the previous evening had left in me a certain
uneasiness. I was eager to show that the incident had no importance:

"Won't you take a seat? and you'll have a cigar?--these are not bad."

"No, thank you," he answered. "No, I guess I won't sit nor smoke jest
now." After a pause, he added, "I see you're studyin'; p'r'aps you're
busy to-day; I won't disturb you."

"You don't disturb me, Sheriff," I rejoined. "As for studying, there's
not much in it. I seem to prefer dreaming."

"Wall," he said, letting his eyes range round the walls furnished with
Law Reports bound in yellow calf, "I don't know, I guess there's a big
lot of readin' to do before a man gets through with all those."

"Oh," I laughed, "the more I read the more clearly I see that law is
only a sermon on various texts supplied by common sense."

"Wall," he went on slowly, coming a pace or two