Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/235

 boots were white with dust when he came in the door; dust was marked in the sweated wrinkles of his sleeves. He stood just inside the door, hesitating, apologetic, afraid of stepping on somebody's toes, or somebody's rights, or somebody's floor, as he always seemed. The sheriff put down his pen, slowly, in a dazed and astounded way, his chicken face as expressive of surprise as it ever depicted any emotion in his life.

"Well, I'll be damned!" said the sheriff.

"Yes, sir," said Tom, respectfully, all rattled and embarrassed, his face as red as if the sheriff had damned him, rather than his official and private self.

"I thought you was back on the Brazos by this time," said the sheriff, frowning on his visitor, greatly displeased, to all appearances, that he was not.

"No, sir," said Tom.

"I see you ain't. Well, where have you been? What're you doin' here?"

"I come up to tell you about them cows of mine."

"I don't want to hear nothin' about your damn cows," the sheriff declared. "If you've got 'em down in Texas, keep 'em there. I don't never want to see the color of their hides agin."

"They're not down in Texas. They're just down here a little ways, six or seven miles southwest of town."

The sheriff got up, leaned forward across his desk, his weight on his rigid arms. He seemed to be an injured and much wronged man, and that injury and that wrong imposed on him by a friend.