“So you pinched Jim’s gun, eh?  And when he couldn’t lift a finger or say a word to stop you.  Do you want to know what would happen if you was to try to get a holt of said gun if Jim Waring was on his two feet?  Well, Jim Waring would pull said trigger, and Criswell would bury said city marshal.”

“The law is the law.  This town’s payin’ me to do my duty, and I’m goin’ to do it.”

“Speakin’ in general, how much do you owe the town so far?”

“Look-a-here!  You can’t run no whizzer like that on me.  I’ve heard tell of you, Mr. Shoop.  No dinky little ole forest ranger can come cantelopin’ round here tellin’ me my business!”

“Mebby I’m dinky, and mebby, I’m old, but your eyesight wants fixin’ if you callin’ me little, old 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.”