Page:Max Brand--The Seventh Man.djvu/235

Rh lean, hungry heads; there were squared, protruding chins, and there were chins which sloped away awkwardly toward the neck; in fact it seemed that the sheriff had collected twenty specimens to represent every phase of weakness and strength in the human physiognomy. But beneath the pictures, almost without exception, there hung weapons: rifles, revolvers, knives, placed criss-cross in a decorative manner, and it came to “Joe Cumber” that he was looking at the galaxy of the dead who had fallen by the hand of Sheriff Pete Glass. Not a face meant anything to him but he knew, instinctively, that they were the chosen bad men of the past twenty years.

“So you're Joe Cumber?”

The sheriff turned in his swivel chair and tossed his cigarette butt through the open window.

“What can I do for you?”

“I got an idea, sheriff, that maybe you'd sort of like to have my picture.”

The sheriff looked up from his study of the card, and having looked up his eyes remained riveted. The other no longer cringed with embarrassment, but every line of his body breathed a great happiness. He was like one who has been riding joyously, with a sharp wind in his face.

There was a distant rushing of feet, a pounding on the door of the next room.

“What's that?” muttered the sheriff, his attention called away.