“I’ll tell you,” said Dan Anderson at length.  “I’d better arrest him myself.  I’m going to defend him, so it would look more regular for me to bring him in.  Looks like he wasn’t afraid of the verdict.  We ain’t, either.  I want you to remember, Judge, if you don’t clear him—­”

Here counsel for the Territory interrupted, feeling that the majesty of the law was not fully observed by threatening the trial judge in advance.

“Well, come along, then,” said Anderson.  “Let that part of it go.  Come over and let’s get out the warrant.”

I was not with them when the warrant was issued, though that part of the proceeding might naturally have seemed rather the duty of the prosecution than of the defence.  Dan Anderson afterward told me that Blackman could not find his law book (he had only one, a copy of the statutes of Kansas) for a long time, and then couldn’t find the proper place in it.  Legal blanks did not exist in Heart’s Desire, and all legal forms had departed from Blackman’s mind in this time of excitement.  Dan Anderson himself drew the warrant.  As it was read later by himself to Curly at the Lone Star, it did not lack a certain charm.  It began with “Greeting,” and ended with, “Now, therefore, in the name of God and the Continental Congress.”  Anderson did not crack a smile in reading it, and so far as that is concerned, the warrant worked as well as any and better than some.  Curly, because he felt that he was in the hands of his friends, made no special demurrer to the terms of the “writ,” and in a few moments the Lone Star was empty and Blackman’s adobe was packed.

CHAPTER IV

THE LAW AT HEART’S DESIRE

Continuing the Story of the Pig from Kansas, and the Deep Damnation of his Taking Off

“Order! order! gentlemen!” called Blackman, Justice of the Peace, clearing his throat.  “This honorable justice court is now in session.  Gentlemen, what is your pleasure?”

He was a little confused, but he meant well.  It seemed incumbent upon the prosecutor to make some sort of a statement, but the attorney for the defence interposed.  He moved for the discharge of the prisoner on the ground that there was no Territorial law and no city ordinance violated; he pointed out that Heart’s Desire was not a city, neither a town, but had never been organized, established, or begun, even to the extent of the filing of a town site plat; he therefore denied the existence of any municipal law, since there had never been any municipality; he intimated that the pig had perhaps been killed accidentally, or perhaps in self-defence; it was plain that the prisoner was wrongfully restrained of his liberty, etc.

The ire of Blackman, J. P., at all this was something to behold.  He to be deprived of his opportunity thus lightly?  Hardly!  He overruled the objections at once, and rapped loudly for order.