“Now,” said Dan Anderson to me, “it’s all right thus far.  Next we have got to get a Justice of the Peace, and then we’ve got to get the prisoner arrested.”

“’Rested!” said Curly.  “Who?  Me?”

“Of course,” drawled his newly constituted attorney.  “Didn’t you kill the pig?  You just hang around for a little, for when we need you, we don’t want to have to hunt all over the country.”

“All right,” said Curly, dubiously.

“Where’s Blackman?” said Dan Anderson, again addressing me.  “We have got to have a judge, or we can’t have any trial.  Come on and let’s hunt him up.  Curly, don’t you run away, mind.  You trust to me, and I’ll get you clear, and get you married, both.”

“All right,” said Curly again, “I’ll just sornter down to the Lone Star, and when you-all want me I’ll be in there, either takin’ a drink or playin’ a few kyards.”

“Let’s get Blackman now,” said Curly’s lawyer.  Blackman was the duly constituted Justice of the Peace in and for Heart’s Desire.  Nobody knew precisely when or how he had been elected, and perhaps indeed he never was elected at all.  There must be a beginning for all things.  The one thing certain as to Blackman was that he had once been a Justice of the Peace back in Kansas, which fact he had not been slow to announce upon his arrival in Heart’s Desire.  Perhaps from this arose the local custom of calling him Judge, and perhaps from his wearing the latter title arose the supposition that he really was a judge.  The records are quite silent as to the origin of his tenure of office.  The office itself, as has been intimated, had hitherto been one purely without care.  At every little shooting scrape or other playfulness of the male population Blackman, Justice of the Peace, became inflated with importance and looked monstrous grave.  But nothing ever came of these little alarms, so that gradually the inflations grew less and less extensive.  They might perhaps have ceased altogether had it not been for this malignant zeal of Dan Anderson, formerly of Princeton, and now come, hit or miss, to grow up with the country.

Blackman was ever ready enough for a lawsuit, forsooth pined for one.  Yet what could he do?  He could not go forth and with his own hands arrest chance persons and hale them before his own court for trial.  The sheriff, when he was in town, simply laughed at him, and told his deputies not to mix up with anything except circuit-court matters, murders, and more especially horse stealings.  Constable there was none; and policeman—­it is to wonder just a trifle what would have happened to any such thing as a policeman or town marshal in the valley of Heart’s Desire!  In short, there was neither judicial nor executive arm of the law in action.  One may, therefore, realize the hindrances which Dan Anderson met in getting up his lawsuit.  Yet he went forward in the attempt patiently, driven simply by ennui.  He did not dream that he was doing something epochal.