hoss. An' I ain't tryin' to tell you your
business. I'm tellin' you mine, which is that Jim Waring goes to Stacey
just the first minute he can put his foot in a buck-board. And he's
goin' peaceful. I got a gun on me that says so."

"The law is the law. I can run you in for packin' concealed weapons, Mr.
Shoop."

"Run me in!" chuckled Shoop. "Nope. You'd spile the door. But let me
tell you. A supervisor is a deputy sheriff--and that goes anywhere
they's a American flag. I don't see none here, but I reckon Criswell is
in America. What's the use of your actin' like a goat just because you
got chin whiskers? I'm tellin' you Jim Waring done a good job when he
beefed them coyotes."

The marshal's pale-blue eyes blinked at the allusion to the goat. "Now,
don't you get pussonel, neighbor. The law is the law, and they ain't no
use you talkin'."

Bud's lips tightened. The marshal's reiterated reference to the law was
becoming irksome. He would be decidedly impersonal henceforth.

"I seen a pair of walkin' overalls once, hitched to a two-bit shirt with
a chewin'-tobacco tag on it. All that held that there fella together was
his suspenders. I don't recollec' whether he just had goat whiskers or
chewed tobacco, but somebody who had been liquorin' up told him he
looked like the Emperor Maximilian. And you know what happened to Maxy."

"That's all right, neighbor. But mebby when I put in my bill for board
of said prisoner and feed for his hoss and one Mexican, mebby you'll
quit talkin' so much, 'less you got friends where you can borrow money."

"Your bill will be paid. Don't you worry about that. What I want to know
is: Does Jim Waring leave town peaceful, or have I got to hang around
here till he gets well enough to travel, and then show you? I got
somethin' else to do besides set on a cracker barrel and swap lies with
my friends."

"You can stay or you can go, but the law is the law--"

"And a goat is a goat. All right, hombre, I'll stay."

"As I was sayin'," continued the marshal, ignoring the deepening color
of Shoop's face, "you can stay. You're too durned fat to move around
safe, anyhow. You might bust."

Shoop smiled. He had stirred the musty marshal to a show of feeling. The
marshal, who had keyed himself up to make the thrust, was disappointed.
He made that mistake, common to his kind, of imagining that he could
continue that sort of thing with impunity.

"You come prancin' into this town with a strange woman,