Page:Cherokee Trails (1928).pdf/36

 place within a few months of its start. With the coming of a stable population in that vicinity, other business besides that of refreshment took hold in Drumwell until several concerns were thriving, but it is quite safe to say that the combined daily revenues of these establishments did not equal the sum spent over Eddie Kane's bar, and through the solicitation of the "ladies" attached to his house, and in fatuous bets placed on his gambling tables.

Drumwell was a mean place, and proud of its hard distinction. If not everybody in it was jealous of its reputation and tried to live to uphold its peculiar standard, then the exceptions were few. It was a place that timid people shunned unless driven to it through necessity, far away from the seat of the county's authority, a dot on the rim of the map.

The sheriff of the county was under a handicap of many miles, there being scarely one mile between Drumwell and the line of the Cherokee Nation, where federal jurisdiction, only, was recognized. Thieves and murderers always had the bulge on the sheriff; they could get safely down into the Indian country before he could throw a leg over a horse to go after them. It must be admitted that he never was in much of a sweat about making a start.

The official policy with Drumwell, as it had been with other Kansas towns of its kind, was to leave its affairs to the town marshal and itself, to boil out its own wickedness and simmer down to respectability at last. They knew how to handle such towns in Kansas in the good old days.

So it was toward this place that the Bar-Heart-Bar contingent was travelling on the train that day, certain of a good warm welcome when they got to rails' end. And Tom