them days his
job was to watch the back windows so nobody didn't plug the sheriff
in the rear while he was adding up mileage at his desk in front. And
in them days I had qualifications for the job. And there was law
and order in Mojada County, and schoolbooks, and all the whiskey
you wanted, and the Government built its own battleships instead of
collecting nickels from the school children to do it with. And, as I
say, there was law and order instead of enactments and restrictions
such as disfigure our umpire state to-day. We had our office at
Bildad, the county seat, from which we emerged forth on necessary
occasions to soothe whatever fracases and unrest that might occur in
our jurisdiction.

"Skipping over much what happened while me and Luke was sheriff, I
want to give you an idea of how the law was respected in them days.
Luke was what you would call one of the most conscious men in the
world. He never knew much book law, but he had the inner emoluments of
justice and mercy inculcated into his system. If a respectable citizen
shot a Mexican or held up a train and cleaned out the safe in the
express car, and Luke ever got hold of him, he'd give the guilty party
such a reprimand and a cussin' out that he'd probable never do it
again. But once let somebody steal a horse (unless it was a Spanish
pony), or cut a wire fence, or otherwise impair the peace and
indignity of Mojada County, Luke and me would be on 'em with habeas
corpuses and smokeless powder and all the modern inventions of equity
and etiquette.

"We certainly had our county on a basis of lawfulness. I've known
persons of Eastern classification with little spotted caps and
buttoned-up shoes to get off the train at Bildad and eat sandwiches
at the railroad station without being shot at or even roped and drug
about by the citizens of the town.

"Luke had his own ideas of legality and justice. He was kind of
training me to succeed him when he went out of office. He was always
looking ahead to the time when he'd quit sheriffing. What he wanted
to do was to build a yellow house with lattice-work under the porch
and have hens scratching in the yard. The one main thing in his mind
seemed to be the yard.

"'Bud,' he says to me, 'by instinct and sentiment I'm a contractor.
I want to be a contractor. That's what I'll be when I get out of
office.'

"'What kind of a contractor?' says I. 'It sounds like a kind of a
business to me. You ain't going to haul cement