ive minutes--then they
hurried to the jail; and when Charley Mansell, with pale face but set
teeth, again presented his pistol, they astonished him with three
roaring cheers, after which each man congratulated him on his courage.

In short, Bunkerville became a quiet place. The new sheriff even went so
far as to arrest the disturbers of camp-meetings; yet the village boys
indorsed him heartily, and would, at his command, go to jail in squads
of half a dozen with no escort but the sheriff himself. Had it not been
that Charley occasionally went to prayer-meetings and church, not a
rowdy at Bunkerville could have found any fault with him.

But not even in an out-of-the-way, malarious Missouri village, could a
model sheriff be for ever the topic of conversation. Civilization moved
forward in that part of the world in very queer conveyances sometimes,
and with considerable friction. Gamblers, murderers, horse-thieves,
counterfeiters, and all sorts of swindlers, were numerous in lands so
near the border, and Bunkerville was not neglected by them. Neither
greenbacks nor national bank-notes were known at that time, and home
productions, in the financial direction, being very unpopular, there was
a decided preference exhibited for the notes of Eastern banks. And no
sooner would the issues of any particular bank grow very popular in the
neighborhood of Bunkerville than merchants began to carefully examine
every note bearing the name of said bank, lest haply some counterfeiter
had endeavored to assist in supplying the demand. At one particular time
the suspicions had numerous and well-founded grounds; where they came
from nobody knew, but the county was full of them, and full, too, of
wretched people who held the doubtful notes. It was the usual habit of
the Bunkerville merchants to put the occasional counterfeits which they
received into the drawer with their good notes, and pass them when
unconscious of the fact; but at the time referred to the bad notes were
all on the same bank, and it was not easy work to persuade the natives
to accept even the genuine issues. The merchants sent for the sheriff,
and the sheriff questioned hostlers, liquor-sellers, ferry-owners,
tollgate-keepers, and other people in the habit of receiving money; but
the questions were to no effect. These people had all suffered, but at
the hands of respectable citizens, and no worse by one than by another.

Suddenly the sheriff seemed to get some trace of the