Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/90

66 of the Republic. Here one, smarting from a hurt, pounced down upon him with a warrant for a felony, and that same night the visiting justice was a guest of the State. But First Class Crawley was no man of feeble resources, and two days later he gave a straw bond and vanished like a newspaper war cloud.

In the Southwest, Crawley was a person of importance—a court of last resort on all matters, barring none. If bets were made, Crawley was umpire. If questions w ere argued, Crawley was judge. If one wanted advice, one went to him. If one wanted information, one went to him; and if one needed money, one went always to First Class Crawley, and put up everything but his life. No function was complete without the presence of this celebrity, be it bull tight or prize fight, or dog fight, or a prearranged resort to the arbitration of the Winchester. Crawley was a great man, in counterdistinction to a bad man. Personally, he neither quarrelled nor fought, and one would have no more considered shooting at Crawley than he would have considered shooting at his grandmother. This proprietor of the