e of the peace!' says he; 'he's
skipped the country with a bunch of horses.'

"'Well, ain't there no officer of the law left in this town?' says I.

"'Why, of course,' says he, 'there's a probate judge; he is over
tendin' bar at the Last Chance Hotel.'

"So I went over to the Last Chance Hotel and I walked in there.
'Mornin',' says I.

"'Morning',' says he.

"'You be the probate judge?' says I.

"'That's what I am,' says he. 'What do you want?' says he.

"'I want justice,' says I.

"'What kind of justice do you want?' says he. 'What's it for?'

"'It's for stealin' a horse,' says I.

"'Then by God you'll git it,' says he. 'Who stole the horse?' says he.

"'It is a man that lives in a 'dobe house, just outside the town
there,' says I.

"'Well, where do you come from yourself?' said he.

"'From Medory,' said I.

"With that he lost interest and settled kind o' back, and says he,
'There won't no Cedartown jury hang a Cedartown man for stealin' a
Medory man's horse,' said he.

"'Well, what am I to do about my horse?' says I.

"'Do?' says he; 'well, you know where the man lives, don't you?' says
he; 'then sit up outside his house, to-night and shoot him when he comes
in,' says he, 'and skip out with the horse.'

"'All right,' says I, 'that is what I'll do,' and I walked off.

"So I went off to his house and I laid down behind some sage-brushes to
wait for him. He was not at home, but I could see his wife movin' about
inside now and then, and I waited and waited, and it growed darker, and
I begun to say to myself, 'Now here you are lyin' out to shoot this man
when he comes home; and it's getting' dark, and you don't know him, and
if you do shoot the next man that comes into that house, like as not it
won't be the fellow you're after at all, but some perfectly innocent man
a-comin' there after the other man's wife!'

"So I up and saddled the bronc' and lit out for home," concluded the
narrator with the air of one justly proud of his own self-abnegating
virtue.

The "town" where the judge above-mentioned dwelt was one of those
squalid pretentiously named little clusters of make-shift dwellings
which on the edge of the wild country spring up with the rapid growth of
mushrooms, and are often no longer lived. In their earlier stages
these towns are frequently built entirely of canvas, and are subject to
grotesque calamities. When the territory purchased from the Sioux, in
the Dakotas, a couple of years ago